Your home is your private oasis. This is especially true in the urban environment, where you need to create a tranquil haven to decompress and live peacefully. This home in Jakarta by the multidisciplinary architecture studio Modernspace is an excellent example.
Located in a 6,458 sq ft L-shaped land in the Big Durian’s busy part of the town, the two-storey house (plus a basement) is a peaceful world that orients all its spaces and views to an inner courtyard.
AT A GLANCE
Home A multi-storey landed home in a 6,458 sq ft land in Jakarta, Indonesia
Architect Modernspace
From the outside, the home appears simple and unassuming, but the introverted spatial design belies a warm heart made for cosy communal activities and fostering bonds between friends and family members.
“The homeowners wanted nothing too showy,” shares Indonesian architect Yanto Effendi, co-founder and design director of Modernspace, who helms the project. “They wanted a low-profile home with plenty of raw materials for that subtle industrial touch.”
Yanto took the brief and analysed the sun on the site. From it emerged the home’s layout, which maximises the site’s footprint by placing a courtyard at the centre of the space.
Envisioned as the heart of the home, the courtyard serves as a means to bring ample natural light and ventilation into all the indoor spaces. It is also multipurpose and versatile. It can function as a green space and an outdoor event space.
“The owners love cooking, and they envisioned this courtyard as an outdoor hangout space with friends and family during events like barbeque and such,” says Yanto.
This courtyard also serves as a buffer zone between the semi-public welcoming and entertaining spaces and the private living spaces.
The former is placed in the south-facing volume, while the latter is tucked inside a three-storey volume located in the northern part of the site.
All the key spaces, however, are open to the green courtyard, allowing indoor activities to spill outside under the sun.
The spatial sequence unfolds slowly from the entrance, revealing the oasis inside gradually.
Guests and dwellers are received into the foyer.
A corridor leads them to the living zone, comprising the indoor living room with a spacious pantry and a glass-encased dining room surrounded by a water feature.
Serving as the main thoroughfare to the living area, the corridor itself comprises folding glass doors on both sides, allowing it to be fully opened to the elements and be an extension of the courtyard.
The living zone comprises three levels. The basement houses the service area and the wet kitchen. The ground floor is home to the living, dining, and working area, while the upper floor hosts the bedrooms and the family’s private living room.
The colour palette is dominated by neutrals to give the dwellers the freedom to fill the space and shape the look according to their unique personalities, thus turning the house into their home.
The entrance and foyer feature massive scale and materials with raw finishes, like cement screed flooring, oversize pivoting timber door, and precast cement with wood grain texture for the facade. These are balanced with white walls and glass surfaces.
The living zone features the same material palette but is infused with more warmth courtesy of terracotta tiles. The warmth of the finishing materials intensifies in the bedrooms, which feature hardwood flooring.
The upper floor sports a unique architectural feature: an L-shaped secondary skin with moveable panels.
The screen is made from an innovative woven material from Byo Living that lends an organic touch to the home.
These moveable panels serve as a heat buffer for sunlight coming from the east and south.
The panels also serve as a privacy screen that eliminates the need for heavy curtains.
They also functions well as a sound barrier from the noise outside.
Sophisticated and deceptively simple, the home is truly a stylish oasis unto its own.