The private house in Kozyn | Znak Design & Architecture

We’ve built a private house for a family of four in the picturesque village of Kozyn in the Kyiv region, located in a pine forest on the bank of the Dnipro River. The house was designed from scratch and fully realized, including the interior design.

The composition of the house is a combination of a single-story and a two-story part, which allowed for smart zoning according to the functionality of the rooms. In particular, in the one-story part there is a children's area — bedrooms and a playroom. In the two-story part, the living room and kitchen with a dining area and access to terraces are located downstairs, and the parent's bedroom with a study is on the second floor. Thanks to this zoning, it was possible to separate the quiet and noisy parts of the house.

The client's dream was to have a modern house with a flat roof. However, technically the structural and functional features of such a solution were not suitable. Therefore, we found an optimal solution: a classic sloping roof with a high decorative eave at the bottom and a large roof overhang, which allowed us to achieve the desired image while avoiding the use of a flat roof.

The house is clad in natural handcrafted German brick, whose main visual advantage is the naturalness and picturesque colors and shapes. We also used natural travertine stone for the facade decoration, which contrasts with the dark brick and creates a calm and friendly visual image of the house.

One of the key conditions of the project was the harmonious combination of the house and the surrounding environment, our favorite trend in architecture. This is manifested both in the horizontal shape of the house and in the fact that most of it is located within one floor, that is, it does not form a heavy volume that restricts the view.

Another manifestation of integration with nature is that we tried to fit the house into the landscape as much as possible without damaging the trees growing around it. Therefore, the surveyor planted the trees precisely, and we placed the house clearly between the trees. Since the root system of pines runs on the surface, we needed the services of a landscape specialist with knowledge of botany, who helped us calculate the proper depth for the foundation and drainage system so as not to damage the trees.