CONTAINER HOUSE
Apartment area 86 m²
Ceiling height 2.6 m
Place Karelia
The architecture of the Karelian village of Kazhma is recognizable and homogeneous:
for the most part these are typical forest huts, fabulous, with a touch of time. The new guest house, which was
built here by two brothers-entrepreneurs Igor and Sergey, does not look like the surrounding dwellings,
although it fit into the landscape with reverence. Karelia, a trend popular among the Soviet intellectuals,
still causes nostalgia for those who remember or have been, but Igor thinks differently: why nostalgic, if you
can just come? His father was from Kazhma, so Igor visited these places throughout his life every summer,
missing out not more than one season. But he had to live in a tent: the most bohemian decision in the
absence of premium housing. From this shortage of offers, was born the idea to build an unusual, modern
guest house for discerning guests, which would become a self-sufficient destination, a place that you
want to visit, probably even more than once. In the initial project of the Maya Baklan design bureau,
located in Kiev, were featured 3 standard 40-foot sea containers, which samed to be in relatively easy
access. They could be combined into a big house, getting an environmentally friendly, budgetary and
exotic solution for the selected area. It turned out, however, that it carries structural risks: difficulties with
thermal insulation and the construction of a pitched roof, a restriction on the height of ceilings and the
impossibility of an open plan kitchen-living room. So it was decided to build a wooden house while
maintaining the overall dimensions of the containers, an area of 86 m2.
for the most part these are typical forest huts, fabulous, with a touch of time. The new guest house, which was
built here by two brothers-entrepreneurs Igor and Sergey, does not look like the surrounding dwellings,
although it fit into the landscape with reverence. Karelia, a trend popular among the Soviet intellectuals,
still causes nostalgia for those who remember or have been, but Igor thinks differently: why nostalgic, if you
can just come? His father was from Kazhma, so Igor visited these places throughout his life every summer,
missing out not more than one season. But he had to live in a tent: the most bohemian decision in the
absence of premium housing. From this shortage of offers, was born the idea to build an unusual, modern
guest house for discerning guests, which would become a self-sufficient destination, a place that you
want to visit, probably even more than once. In the initial project of the Maya Baklan design bureau,
located in Kiev, were featured 3 standard 40-foot sea containers, which samed to be in relatively easy
access. They could be combined into a big house, getting an environmentally friendly, budgetary and
exotic solution for the selected area. It turned out, however, that it carries structural risks: difficulties with
thermal insulation and the construction of a pitched roof, a restriction on the height of ceilings and the
impossibility of an open plan kitchen-living room. So it was decided to build a wooden house while
maintaining the overall dimensions of the containers, an area of 86 m2.
The leitmotif of the interior, of course, is wood: a plain local pine was used in the decoration of walls, ceilings and doors, in built-in furniture and tables. The natural color of the tree is set off through the bright red accents of doorways, curtains and bedspreads, pleasing the eye of a lover of the usual Scandinavian aesthetics. In most rooms, panoramic glazing, even in severe frost, it is not cold to approach the glass, peering into the distance. Iranian carpet and pillows with folklore ornaments make the interior more expressive.
But in the bathrooms there are absolutely no references to local color, they are deliberately modern, urban. The temporary refuge is noticeably distant from civilization: on one side the house looks at Lake Onega, the other in a vast field. But the traveler will meet full comfort here, no worse to the usual home.
