The Gozu House – A Green-Roofed Retreat Takes In The Beauty Of A Valley
Nowadays there seems to be an almost unanimous inclination towards designing and building houses that have a strong relationship with the outdoors and that usually features such as tall and wide windows, sliding glass doors, skylights or large patios and gardens have become common design elements. However, that doesn’t mean all modern and contemporary houses look alike.
On the contrary, there are some striking differences between them as architects and designers are constantly innovating and coming up with new ideas. Projects such as the Gozu House show us that there’s more than one way to make a home blend in with its surroundings.
The Gozu House is located in El Retiro, in Colombia. It sits at the edge of a plot which overlooks a big valley with outlines of mountains in the distance. It’s a 500 square meter home that was designed by OPUS. It was completed in 2015 and it’s a pretty special house for a variety of reasons. First of all, look at its form. This is not your average residence. The interior spaces are organized into two main volumes which are in fact two separate wings that meet at the center.
One of the volumes contains the social areas of the house and is oriented towards East, offering some pretty amazing views of the valley. The other volume contains the private spaces and is open to the forest which allows it to offer an increased sense of privacy. These two volumes are connected by a central space which contains the entrance. They form a rather unusual floor plan, giving the house an almost V-shaped look. On top of that, the house has a green roof which allows it to better blend in with its natural surroundings.