Articles by Paula Pintos

Bellbird Retreat is a weekend escape to a stunning rural setting.  The modest dwelling sits in a pristine bushland reserve and encourages a dialogue between man-made and natural environments. Connection to place is embraced through building form and materials, climatic sensitivity, and the framing of views.  As a place of contemplation and rejuvenation, Bellbird Retreat excels.  Tempering the remote rural land upon which it sits, it affords its occupants comfort and safe haven.

Step House is a haven for a family searching for a new beginning. Set on a large, 200-by-400 lot near Vancouver’s Pacific Spirit Park, space provides a green sanctuary in the city. While land in Vancouver is at a premium and we often face restraints to scope, with Step House the challenge was to continually edit our work so as to avoid overbuilding. Our clients requested that we maintain a minimalistic approach to the site, and the result is a building that is simple, refined and white.

This country house in the south-western part of Iceland is one of the first projects by KRADS. Over the past 10 years it is gradually being worked on every time the owners, who live abroad, are in Iceland. The main focus in the design of the housewas to create a careful and functional engagement with the dramatic and beautiful topography of the site.  Partly submerged in the steep terrain of Langitangi (“Long-Peninsula”), the elongated building’s horizontal figure presents itself in the landscape as a geometrically accentuated topographic contour line.The building’s placement on the peninsula was specifically chosen in order to create a varied dialogue between the structure and it’s context.The rough concrete and the low, cantileveringroof endure the windswept site, while sheltering in- and outdoor spaces from the barren landscape. 

Point Roadknight is a two-storey cedar-clad family holiday house in Anglesea with a dominant upper level overlooking a tennis court that has been enjoyed and much loved by the owners’ family since its construction in 1988. The next generation of children has placed greater demands on the house and the owners saw this as an opportunity to add second living space, create some spatial efficiencies, renew and insulate the building envelope and refurbish the existing fittings and finishes.

The object Blumenegg Pavilion is an event space in the midst of the remaining walls of the ruins of Blumenegg Castle. It is to be run by an association as a cultural and leisure centre and used by the surrounding region. The building, with a floor space of 60 square metres, is intended to accommodate various events and consists of the main room and a small kitchen.

On Kallaxön in the very north of Sweden outside Luleå lies house Granholmen a small light green wooden summer cottage. The area surrounding the house is characterized by intense greenery with conifers covering the island’s inner parts and deciduous trees at the water’s edge. There is no distinctive tradition of the classic Swedish red houses in this part of the archipelago.

St.Margaret’s Anglican Church was built in 1861, designed by the architect Nathaniel Billing as a polychromatic brick gothic revival building atop a hill in Pitt Street, Eltham.  The Heritage Victoria registered building is notable for its geometric brickwork, large buttresses, and central bell turret, but also featured a farsighted temporary rear wall which facilitated the extension of the worship space to nearly twice its original size.   The property is also occupied by another Heritage Victoria listed building in Dendy House, a 1870s former vicarage as well as the 1978 mud-brick community hall by Robert Marshall.  Aside from extending the worship space, the scheme endeavoured to relate to these other two distinctive buildings as well as creating a new identifiable entry with ancillary support spaces.

In the city, we long for the sky; we long for the grass. We long to feel the drops of rain on our cheeks. We long to feel the sun on our skin. On this site, we have created a new environment in an urban world, full of possibilities. It is our goal to revive the city through these spaces, by providing a safe place for a person to relax in.