Yên Bài Villa

A weekend home for a young family stands in hilly country at the edge of a large city, among natural forest and the cultures of the mountain communities nearby. The brief asked for a place where the family could gather on weekends with every comfort of modern life, while spending more of the day close to nature.

The design team took the bird’s nest as its guiding image: a shelter that is safe and warm, yet always open to the landscape and to the people within it. The house works as a nest in this sense, holding the family together while giving each member the privacy they need.

Space is arranged as a sequence of shared, buffer and private zones. The whole ground floor is given to family life. Living room, kitchen and dining area run together and open onto a large yard, a play area and a pool, with a full view across the plot. A double-height void at the centre joins the stair and the upper corridor, links the two floors and draws air through the house. Secondary functions sit on the west side behind large trees that shade the house from the afternoon sun.

Bedrooms are lifted to the upper floor. Below them, terraces and corridors act as soft thresholds between inside and outside and protect the interior from rain and the western sun. Large overhanging volumes, balconies and verandas give the elevations their nest-like character, and a sloping roof follows the line of the surrounding hills. The column structure that carries the upper rooms and the roof draws on the stilt houses of the north-western mountain peoples.

Wood, natural stone, exposed concrete and deliberately rough finishes keep the interior simple and tactile. A natural stone wall rises through the void and makes the vertical connection visible. Along the upper corridor, a glazed roof and louvres let air circulate through the house and cast moving bands of light across the walls and floor.