Project: Ternion – Three Independent Villas
Architects: Studio Toggle
Location: Kuwait City, Kuwait
Year 2020
Ternion is a composition of three independent villas in Kuwait. Variably stacked prismatic volumes create a porous-pixellated massing achieving a harmonious balance between the opposing ideals of privacy and community.
The expressive volumes of the three villas reach out to each other creating a streamlined street interface, thereby forging a unified identity for the development.
The architecture of the three villas is to be read as a whole, composed of a series of hierarchical social spaces, organized based on their varying degrees of openness and privacy. These range from fully enclosed, private, and silent gardens to vast terraces, opening up to the streetscape and the vistas beyond.
Each villa is centred around a private courtyard featuring a swimming pool as a modern functional interpretation of a traditional ‘Hosh’ with a water feature. The social spaces are grouped around this pool and feature longitudinal full-height glazed windows facilitating cross ventilation and evaporative cooling when open.
The glazed internal walls afford panoramic views to the garden and pools while shaded from the scorching sun by cantilevered volumes mitigating the heat gain. This results in a composition of variably stacked prismatic volumes creating a pixelated/porous massing that endeavours to achieve a harmonious balance between the opposing ideals of privacy and community.
Ternion is an experiment in modern Arabic residential architecture, that respects the privacy and exclusivity dictated by the social norms without compromising on the joys of community.
