Live Art
Type: Private residence
Area: 640(indoor) + 494(outdoor) = 1134 sq.m
Year: 2018
Location: Kropyvnitskiy Region
Architects: Alexander Kovpak, Sergey Makhno
A two-storey house is about thoughtful minimalism with everything needed.
Designers focused on its self-sufficiency and clients’ needs. As a result, the house shows the balance between
the pleasure got from things and the pleasure got from freedom of things.
Besides basic living zones, the architectural complex includes a terrace with a pool, a special pavilion for tea ceremonies,
and a cabinet with an ‘art view’ - the sculptures of modern Ukrainian artists were placed outside along the two full-glass walls. The artificial water body near the house proves once again that everything here is created for owners' life.
“Not for a picture. It’s for life. This house is created to be fully in a moment you live in and to have all for this moment.
How the Earth orbits the Sun, this house orbits clients' needs”, -
Sergey Makhno, the founder of Sergey Makhno Architects
The house is based on block systems and made of three materials - corten steel, ceramics, and glass. The unification of constructive elements is a functional decision to make it easier to build. Because of corten steel parts with columns between the exterior seem sliced like a chocolate bar. Even the same colored.
Despite quite heavy materials, the building looks floating. This was achieved through special bottom apertures - the ‘legs’ on which the house stands on. The same mirrored apertures function like windows on the higher part of the second floor.
A simple clean-lined Japanese approach to architecture was finished with art.
“No art - no architecture. In a narrow sense, art is a sculptural element and one of the basic characteristic of our architecture. It became a habit to complement own projects with sculptures and paintings, to integrate installations in. Broadly speaking, art is what we create. Our perception of the space as not four walls, but freedom” -
Alexander Kovpak, the architect of Sergey Makhno Architects
From the street, the facade is closed. The first-glance association is an industrial building, but it’s deceptive.
The inner part is transparent and open because of the glass walls which open up a panoramic view.
The transparency is well-planned. Some of the glass windows were arranged in such a way to point on art objects.
