KULEN VILLA
Siem Reap, Concept 2020
Weekend houses, 280 sqm
INSPIRED BY PLACE / DESIGNED BY NATURE
Expressing what a main residence, second home or weekend retreat can be, the Banteay Srei Estate introduces the Kulen Villas: a residence defined by place and designed by nature.
Blending natural materials with contemporary fixtures and facilities, each villa design offers a living experience that merges first-world comfort with the hues and textures of the landscape, environment and culture of its Banteay Srei home.
Incorporating a large pool and deck, master bedroom, three additional bedrooms (all with en-suites), and state-of-the art living, dining and kitchen facilities, topped by a spacious roof terrace, a Kulen Villa allows you to select your mood and lifestyle: a weekend retreat for wellness and meditation or a place for entertainment, family and friends.
Nestled in its own tropical ecosystem of lush native trees and shrubs, our villa design provides the perfect rejoinder to the pace and responsibilities of twenty-first century living. Bloom, our design partners, have taken the greatest care to ensure the use of renewable materials and the encouragement of natural light and airflow. The result is designs that complement naturalness and function with human comfort and wellness, each villa harmonising with the estate’s emphasis on regeneration and resilience.
The roof top terrace of the Kulen villa is the ideal location for watching the sunrise over the near-distant Kulen Mountains or at the end of the day, looking on as egrets and darters return to their lake-side roosts.
THE TROPICAL LOFT
Programmatically each room is an autonomous module prioritizing mod-ern comfort and its specific relationship to the surrounding garden, spread out to benefit a maximum of the generosity of the plot. These small volumes form a central space, the core of the project, a generous tropical loft space distributing the room and becoming a generous space.
In between the volumes and the oustide skin, natural buffer spaces, featuring lush plants participate to the biophilic experience of the house. The house is on a single story in order to benefit from the shade created by the trees and to be built on shallow foundations.
A RESIDENTIAL SCULPTURE – A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH
The form of the house is abstract, a direct expression of its function, a sculptural shape clad with bricks, a traditional material from Siem Reap, used in the first Angkorian temples. In order to give a contemporary aspect to this material, a light and open pattern has been selected to let natural light and ventilation through, the brick will appear more like a mesh or a lantern at night. Each room can be naturally lit and ventilated reducing electricity consumption. From a social standpoint it was important to use brick to preserve the ancient knowledge and also work hand in hand with local producer teaching them about better working ethics and how to turn a common material to them into something unique.
Antoine Meinnel / Bloom Architecture Co. Ltd.
Team: Antoine Meinnel, Ith Sovannarith, Antoine Contour, Ban Rithy, Sov Kikheang