Paddle Villa . Dubai | Andrew Bannister

Those of you who design villas for private clients will understand when I say, the final design is a hundred miles from the original design request.   To begin with it was to be minimal accomodation and to have a large pool and lots of garage space for the clients many cars... It began its life at the start of the pandemic, and opposite three existing villas that I had previously designed and built for the same client... so this was to be as much a place to have a swim and store cars, more than a family residence...  But just as time passes relentlessley, so too did the client consistently change their minds about the function of this new build.  Gradually, and many conceptual layouts and designs later, we thought we had reached agreement, only to discover that after intial planning approvals had been granted, the client wanted to add an additional floor level and also to add a Paddle Tennis Court.

The inverted roof idea was initially to house all of the services such as air conditioning, solar water heater and photovoltaic panel, etc... but needing to add the extra floor level meant a small change, and so I had to "swell" the entire vertical structure and increase the number of rooms and sports accomodation...  

Another request was for me to somehow keep to my original deisgns across the road.. but make it totally different too  !     

I design villas in one of the hottest countries on the world and I have to focus on the fact that sun shading is of prime importance... hence I tend to design structures that have the ability to naturally have overhangs wherever there 'could' be a window or opening...   and of course due to the clients ever changing desire to 'change things' during and after a design phase, my basic architecture allows for the placement of windows or doors, just about anywhere... 

So why the inverted golden roof ? Good question... An the front facade with a concave asymetric element that caused me all sorts of issues in my 3d sketch... and why the double garage doors set right up to the boundary and of a different height... !     The point is that due to clients wanting something the same but different, planning rules and the evolution of the project, each had a part to play in what I hope will become a villa that asks as many questions as it forms the spaces that work for the client and the aesthetic that makes you possibly look twice, hopefully without wincing.    Andrew J Bannister