STATUS
COMPLETED
CLIENT
Mads Peter Veiby
TYPOLOGY
Residential
SIZE M2/FT2
840 / 9,041
SHARE
In the words of BIG Founder & Creative Director, Bjarke Ingels: “Designing a home for a family is like painting a portrait. A portrait’s success lies not only in the artists’ ability to express themselves – but rather in their ability to capture the expressions, character, personality, or even the soul of those being portrayed. As an architectural portrait, the home is about creating a framework for interests and needs, wishes and dreams, requirements and criteria – in short – the life the family wants to live.”
In Villa Gug, located in its namesake city Gug in Northern Denmark, the clients’ passion for cars plays a major role in the family’s life, taking up a significant portion of the housing area. Instead of hiding the cars away in a basement, or a large garage, BIG designed a house that smoothly transitions from the car to the home.
The linear building curves in a loop around the top of the hill framing a central courtyard for the family’s private affairs. The building’s character gradually changes from an introverted garage and showroom at the driveway, to the more open functional spaces, including the kitchen, living room, and terrace on the top of the building.
From within, the spaces open up towards the central garden – offering increasingly expansive views as the rooms climb the hill and begin to perceive the distant horizons beyond the roof line.
The cars are protected from the outside, but visible across the garden from the living spaces and bedrooms. Looking out from the bedroom, the client can say goodnight to their cars before turning out the light each night.
The spiral courtyard creates a balance between private living and public location, while the continuous ascent effects a gradual transition between parking and living.
With Villa Gug, BIG has reprogrammed the standard house as we know it by basing the design on the clients’ passion, creating a type of housing that is tailored to the residents of this specific household. In terms of architecture as portraiture, Villa Gug is a pure manifestation of a house shaped by the desires of its inhabitants.
GARAGE TO LIVING ROOM
— BIG imagined the house as a linear organization of rooms ranging from the most intimate - the cars to the most public - the living room.
PRIVATE TO PUBLIC
— Being located in the center of a public park, at the top of a hill imposed an inherent dilemma of the balance between privacy and views.
CREATE PRIVACY
— The central garden is the private oasis in the public park.
LET SUNLIGHT IN
— Open to the south all rooms are bathed in sunlight.
OPTIMIZE VIEWS
— The family rooms overlook the landscape. The garage opens to the garden.
GARAGE, SWEET GARAGE
Bjarke Ingels Finn Nørkjær David Zahle Jakob Lange Ole Elkjær-Larsen Alda Sol Hauksdóttir Alexander Codda Andy Coward Anke Kristina Schramm Anna Wiktoria Wozniak Anne-Charlotte Wiklander Athena Morella Bjarke Koch-Ørvad Cæcilie Søs Brandt-Olsen Dag Præstegaard Enea Michelesio Eskild Schack Pedersen Frederik Lyng Frederik Skou Jensen Hugo Yun Tong Soo Joanna Anna Jakubowska Kim Christensen Kristoffer Negendahl Lasse Lyhne-Hansen Mads Engaard Stidsen Mads Johansen Margarida Fino Jerónimo Michael James Kepke Michael Leef Morten Roar Berg Nanna Gyldholm Møller Naysan John Foroudi Pawel Bussold Richard Howis Rihards Dzelme Sofia Sofianou Timo Harboe Nielsen Tommy Bjørnstrup Tore Banke Weronika Marek Gökce Günbulut Brygida Zawadzka Elina Skujina Katarina Mácková Katerina Joannides Krzysztof Piotr Marciszewski Nicolas Millot Priscilla Bellas
