Arc House is a private house among fields and olive trees, a few minutes inland from Umag on the Istrian coast of Croatia. Designed as a family home or a holiday house, it is one house for family, guests and live-in staff, each with rooms and a terrace of their own.
The project asks what a modern reinterpretation of the Palladian country villa would be in the context of coastal Istria. The budget was that of an ordinary Istrian villa of comparable size, so the classical elements had to be carried by geometry rather than by material or ornament. The house was designed with the 9A method, which the architect has developed and used for more than ten years: a building is treated as nine aspects (use, typology, disposition, scale, form, structure, envelope, cost and genius loci) that depend on each other but are decided one by one.
The house is a plain rectangular volume in white mineral render. Plan and elevations follow a single axis of symmetry. The flat roof is hidden behind a parapet, so the volume ends in a single horizontal line.
The recurring element is the half-arch: the flat arch common in Croatian coastal building, cut in half. On the north façade, towards the street, three half-arches are applied to the face of the volume, as Palladio composed fronts from applied classical elements; the central one frames a double-height opening onto the stair. On the south, facing the pool, the same element becomes structural: a portico of concrete half-arches, set at an angle to the façade, shading the terraces on both floors. Arches, columns and cantilevers are cast in reinforced concrete; the walls are clay block, insulated and rendered.
The plan is organised as semi-autonomous units rather than one sequence of rooms. The ground floor holds the living and dining room, the kitchen and one bedroom. On the first floor are four suites, each with its own bathroom and its own covered terrace or loggia. A small staff apartment with its own entrance and terrace sits in the north-east corner, separate from the rest of the house. The units can be used together or apart: by one family, by a family with guests, or by a group renting the whole house.
The house opens east, south and west to its garden: a dining terrace with an outdoor kitchen to the east, a lounge terrace to the west, the pool and a covered veranda to the south. Facing three directions, the terraces give sun or shade at any hour, and in the mild Istrian winter they are used all year.
Inside, timber joinery forms the doors, wardrobes and shelving, set against exposed concrete ceilings and pale floors; the bathrooms are finished in rust-red tile. The portico and the covered terraces shade the glazing, so the rooms take their light from the terraces rather than directly from the sky. Paintings by Alba Miočev give each room its own colour.
Architect: Ivan Gavran Vlahović, IGV
Interior design: Jana Piacun
Structural engineering: Dijana Plećaš, Fundamenti
Electrical engineering: Luciano Ćustić, LC Design
Mechanical engineering: Slaven Dugalić Toffolini, Termotehnika
Main contractor: Novus Domum, Umag
Metalwork, glazing, railings, gates, shading: Metalmont, Pazin
Interior doors: Diart, Zagreb
Lighting: Intra lighting
Landscape: Landscape Art (Radovan Marić)
Outdoor kitchen: Evoluta
Furniture and decoration: Dizajnholik
Artworks: Alba Miočev and Kolekcionart
Photography and video: Marko Mihaljević
Project page: https://arc.igv.hr/?r=archello
