2019
L.E.FT Achitects
Edited by: Sulaf Al Halaseh

Great Landscapes Influence great architecture.

The house of vaults, a 30* 30 m residence that is located along the edge of Shouf Mountains with an overlooking view of the Mediterranean Sea.

While the residence sits below the shrine of the prophet Job, in the village of Niha, one of the most visited religious sites in Lebanon, the significance of its location had a great influence on the architecture of the house itself.

The reinterpretation of the cross-vaulted houses that donned the local mountainous landscape at the turn of the century, a series of vaults, pertaining to the different residential programs.

The vaults organize the program both on the ground floor and the upper floor with the main public functions of living rooms, dining area, office, guest bedroom and kitchen on the ground floor, and sleeping quarters both on the first floor with two master bedrooms each occupying one vault and the semi-open basement level that house the children’s bedrooms.

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Akin to a prostration position, the house scale kneels at its lowest towards the shrine, and opens up at its highest towards the view.

The historic house volume is here redefined, from a normative pitched roof sitting on a box with cross vaults below, collapsing into a new geometry where the roof of the house becomes both pitched from above, vaulted from below and twisted from the sides to form the rectangular base.

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Project info.

Location: Niha Village, Lebanon
Total floor area: 2000 sqm
Architects: L.E.FT Team
Landscape architects: Vladimir Djurovic Landscape Architecture
Photographer: Bahaa Ghoussainy

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About L.E.FT:

Established in New York in 2005, the firm has been recognized internationally with numerous awards, publications and exhibitions for quality and excellence in design.
Currently, LEFT is designing residential and cultural projects in New York, Beirut, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.