KWK Promes was commissioned to create a house in a suburban area of central Poland and given the instruction that it must respond to the sun in some way. The firm came up with a remarkable luxury home centered around a novel moving terrace.
The Quadrant House is almost L-shaped, with the movable terrace traveling automatically between a glass-fronted living room and a spa, extending those spaces and helping to control the light and shade. The video below shows the system in action.
"Depending on the time of the year, it regulates the amount of sunlight in the spaces it adjoins," explains the press release. "In the summer giving the desired shade, and in the winter allowing more sunlight into the interior."
The terrace travels slowly on a rail embedded in the ground using an automated drive with integrated safety sensors, and its movement and speed is adapted to match the sun's movement in the sky. It can also be manually operated and has automatically-adjusting blinds fitted. The system was designed by regular KWK Promes collaborator Comstal.
Quadrant House has a gable roof on the street-facing side to comply with planning requirements, but the garden-facing side is flat, as per the owner's wishes. From the road there are also no visible windows, though generous glazing is installed on the garden-facing side.
The interior of the home has a total floorspace of 558 sq m (6,000 sq ft), spread over two floors. In addition to the movable terrace, living room and spa, the ground floor features a garage, a kitchen and a dining area. There are three bedrooms upstairs.
KWK Promes is certainly no stranger to producing out-of-the-box ideas and its National Museum in Szczecin and By The Way House are noteworthy too.
Source: KWK Promes
Mediabeing: the spa doesn't move. What moves is an empty extension section between the living room and the spa.