Commissioned · C3
Al Ain Farm House
Al Ain, UAE · 2018
- Year
- 2018
- Location
- Al Ain, UAE
- Type
- Residential, farm house
- Credit
“The perfect excuse for a family escape.”
Not all of 's work stays on paper. Al Ain Farm House is a commissioned home for a private client. It carries some of the same questions as the research into daily life: water, the shared centre, the far horizon.
Like a desert oasis, the house is a break away from the city. It is a place for a family to arrive and slow down. The design dates from 2018.
Turning inward
The house lies on a water bed. Its orientation is internal. The main life of the house happens at its centre. Every room is directed toward it. The centre is where the day collects.
Eyes cross. Conversations start. The plan is shaped around being together, more than around a view out. Privacy does not come from walls alone. It comes from where the rooms face.
The falaj
A reflective pool surrounds the house. It is a tribute to the falaj, the water channels of the oases.
The house is held by water. The water draws a quiet edge around the home. An old form of the oasis returns, at the scale of one family.
The roof
The roof is a second ground. It holds seating and dining areas. Meals move up into the open air. From here, the family can see Jabal Hafeet and take in the view.
The mountain is far away, but it is always there. At ground level the house looks inward. From the roof it looks out.
Research, at home
The ideas here are familiar from 's other work. Water as a threshold, as at Jumeirah Archaeological Square. A shared centre where people meet, as in Al Wasl Nursery. A distant horizon, as in the Sharjah mountains.
The research asks what a place remembers. A home answers in smaller ways. Where the family gathers. Where they eat. What they see from the roof as the light changes.
In Al Ain these ideas take the size of a family's life. Meals on the roof. Conversations across the centre. Light on the water.
Scale
Its life gathers into one centre, one pool, one roof. Here, scale is felt as closeness.
The tone is quiet. Nothing is staged. The house shows that the research is not only a set of questions. It can also become a home.
Images · 39 in all
