The garden house in the city | christos pavlou architecture

Bringing nature back to the city although not a new idea it is a growing imperative for cities like Nicosia which has failed to make greenery and communal public areas a priority in its urban planning and when lockdown began, they discovered just how essential it is to have outdoor and indoor green spaces at home.

 A house that brings nature back to the city, promoting shared spaces and social dialogue between its residents is what inspired us to design the ‘’garden house’’. The design emphasises the potential for private urban gardens and the microclimates they create to improve living conditions within cities and slow global warming.

 Not hiding behind fences our proposal aims to form a physical continuation of the adjacent public green area. The house seeks to establish a unified relationship between the neighbourhood, the private garden and the public park, it becomes part of the park and the park is included in the house. 

 All areas inside flow on the outer spaces and are organized around a green courtyard placed in-between two white cubic volumes.  Continuous glazed doors not only separate the interior spaces but, when opened, make the whole house form a unique space connected by gardens but furthermore the interior responding to the surrounding public gardens, create the impression of one and the same whole. ​​Moving around the house is difficult to realize where the garden ends and the interior begins.

 The house incorporates a series of private gardens that include a courtyard that runs through the centre of the structure, green terraces, interior gardens and the planting of 40 kinds of bee-friendly wildflowers on 60% of the ground floor. Making space for nature not only brings beauty to the urban fabric but encourages the return of local bird species and bees maintaining thus urban biodiversity.