Silver Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2023
RB23 Boutique Residence Single Family House
by Pawel Lis
- A' Design Award 2023 Silver Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2023
- CLIENT: Pawel Lis Architekci
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 19,423
- Verification code 05440D6C07 · Verify this award
About RB23 Boutique Residence Single Family House
RB23 Boutique Residence is a two-story single family house built in a forest village near Warsaw. The form is composed of three rectangular solids, inspired by scattered wooden blocks. The facades are covered with clinker tiles, the walls are built of construction brick, and the ceilings are monolithic. A wide and narrow window is pressed into the front of the first floor and opens toward the surrounding forest. The usable area is 285 square meters. Each household member has a separate room, and the day and night zones are clearly separated.
Within the continuum of contemporary residential architecture, Pawel Lis's RB23 Boutique Residence Single Family House emerges as a refined meditation on the modernist tradition of integrating built form with natural landscape. The design demonstrates sophisticated compositional intelligence through its deployment of bold geometric volumes that appear to float above the verdant ground plane, the cantilevered upper story creating a dramatic dialogue between mass and void, shelter and openness. The chromatic restraint of the predominantly white palette serves to amplify the building's formal clarity while establishing a luminous counterpoint to the deep greens of the surrounding woodland, a relationship that evokes the phenomenological concerns of architects who have sought to frame nature through architectural intervention. Technical accomplishment manifests in the precise articulation of material transitions, where smooth rendered surfaces meet textured horizontal cladding with careful attention to proportion and alignment, suggesting a design process attuned to both conceptual rigor and craft excellence. The horizontal ribbon windows recall the modernist fascination with the free façade while their warm illumination transforms the residence into a beacon of domestic sanctuary within the natural setting, embodying architecture's capacity to mediate between the vastness of nature and the intimacy of dwelling. Thematic resonances emerge around concepts of refuge and prospect, the primal human desire for sheltered observation points that offer both protection and visual command of the surrounding environment. The processional approach along the central axis invites contemplation of architecture as a choreographed experience, where movement through space becomes integral to the work's meaning. Viewers might consider how this residence articulates contemporary aspirations for lives lived in dialogue with nature while maintaining the comforts of modernist spatial innovation.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Can the modern 300 meters house aspire to be a residence? Of course it can. Exemple of such residence is our realization- RB23 house. This house is not monumental and multi-storey with a driveway for several cars, not does it have a heated swimming pool in the garden. RB23 does not resemble the residences from the neighborhood. Is a light and dynamic architecture composed of three rectangular clinker solids. The characteristic element of this building is a wide and narrow window from the front side pressed into the body of the first floor. The window vigilantly observes the life going on in the surrounding forest.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Two-story house. Usable area 285m2, ground area 1800m2, location near Warsaw.
- Tags
- rb23, boutique residence, contemporary architecture, contemporary polish houses
- Production Technology
- Monolithic ceilings, construction brick walls, sheet metal roof, facades covered with clinker tiles, windows with aluminum frames
- Design Challenge
- The most difficult part of whole project process was to change the investors thinking about suburban house. In Poland still very popular is a stereotype vision of suburban villas close to the 19th century Polish manors.
- Project Duration
- Project finished in 2018. End of house construction 2019-2020. Location - a forest village near Warsaw
- Operation Flow
- The project met the expectations of investors, although initially they wanted a larger house. Each of the household members has their own room, there are 3 bathrooms and the night and day zones are clearly separated from each other. On the ground floor there is an office and an additional room for guests. The daytime zone flows smoothly into the relaxation zone ended with a terrace with a small heated swimming pool. Reducing the area of the house didn’t negatively affect its function.
- Research
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- Inspiration
- Investor returned with his memories to early years of childhood when he was a fan of wooden blocks. That was our inspiration. We scattered blocks and created a model of a house. Their ergonomic form was close to our thinking of this house. Important was to create some elements referring to surroundings, so a characteristic element of this building is a wide and narrow window from the front side pressed into the body of the first floor. We were inspired by old pulpits at the edge of the forest.
- Image Credits
- 1: photographer Radek Galczynski, 2019/2020
2: photographer Radek Galczynski, 2019/2020
3: photographer Radek Galczynski, 2019/2020
4: photographer Radek Galczynski, 2019/2020
5: photographer Radek Galczynski, 2019/2020
6: photographer Radek Galczynski, 2019/2020 - Patents
- Copyrights belong to pawel lis, 2020