concrete shell wraps terraced gardens of atelier gratia's 'star house'

star house: exploring a hybrid architecture

With radially folded surfaces, the concrete facade of Atelier Gratia’s Star House evokes a dynamic burst. The team names the newly completed work of architecture for its location on Star Street in the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung, along with the angular footprint of its site, a boundary which informs the building’s irregular plan.

Based in Kaohsiung, the architects are deeply familiar with the city, which sees the confluence of two separate planning grids which comprise row houses and courtyard houses. The collision of these two logical grids creates this irregularly-shaped plot — an anomaly amongst the rigorous urban fabric. The team thus celebrates the meeting of these two housing typologies within the layered city to explore a new, hybrid architecture.

images © Yi-Hsien Lee, courtesy of atelier GRATIA | @ateliergratia

terraced gardens within a concrete shell

With the design of its Star House, the architects at Atelier Gratia organize a collection of thresholds to gradually transition between public to private. The built space looks inward to a large central courtyard, which is itself surrounded by an array of smaller terraces of varying elevations. This condition succeeds in creating both connections and interstitial zones, both tiled and landscaped. The result is a sheltered sanctuary which is open to natural sunlight and breezes and is shaped by a conceptual connection with its urban context.

sculptural architecture by atelier gratia

Designing its Star House, Atelier Gratia looks to the night sky, organizing its interiors to recall a constellation of spaces ‘connected like stars.’ With its central courtyard with interiors opening in all directions, the house performs like a sundial — marking the passing hours, days, and seasons which transform its spaces with ever-changing light and shadow.

The dwelling is defined at once by the strong presence created by its geometric form. Taking shape with angular concrete surfaces, the house stands out as a striking sculpture emerging from the residential neighborhood. Meanwhile, the heaviness of the raw concrete shell is balanced by light interiors of glass.