The ranch is a conceptual project for a single-family residential building operating off-grid.
Positioned under the southern slopes of Stara Planina, for the development of the Ranch, only the climatic factors and the peculiarities of the terrain had to be taken into account, and the fact that the terrain falls within the protected area of Natura 2000.
For the minimum intervention in the terrain, ground anchors are provided for the foundations of the building, on which a skeleton wooden structure is built with a filling of straw bales as insulating external walls, and adobe walls are provided for internal partition walls to increase the thermal mass in the building.
A greenhouse attached to the building provides an opportunity for residents to grow herbs and spices for their household needs all year round and also to serve as a passive “heat pump”, which in winter heats fresh air supplied for ventilation, and in summer with the help of convection, it sucks out heated air and already used air outside the building.
The client’s requirements were for the building to have the possibility to add auxiliary buildings in the future in the guided north and east, in which we made a parallel with one of the main principles of the Japanese closed-type houses.