Cuckoo House

Cuckoo House combines a home for a family of four, parents and two children, with a coffee shop. It is built from local clay brick, which gives it a familiar feel, and its shape recalls a cuckoo clock.

Three blocks sit on top of a long rectangular base. The base is the coffee shop, with a garden as its outdoor area. The blocks above hold the separate parts of the home. Block A is the parents’ room on two levels, with the bedroom above and the bathroom and walk-in closet below. Block B has the children’s room upstairs and the living room beneath. Block C holds the kitchen and dining table.

Between the blocks are buffer spaces, only partly covered. People tend to stay inside the rooms that frame their daily routines, so the architects pulled the walls apart and offered these in-between spaces to draw the family out and bring them together. The buffers can be used freely, joining inside and outside so that family life can be private or open, and they let the breeze reach every corner of the house through the tropical summer.

Arched openings along the base frame the garden and the street, and perforated brick screens filter the light into the rooms above.