BIG

The Mountain is the 2nd generation of the VM Houses – same client, same size, and same street. The program, however, is 2/3 parking and 1/3 living. What if the parking area became the foundation of the homes – like a concrete hillside covered by a thin layer of housing, cascading from the 1st to the 11th floor? Rather than doing two separate buildings next to each other – a parking block and a housing block – we decided to merge the two functions into a symbiotic relationship.

The parking area needs to be connected to the street and the homes require sunlight, fresh air and a view. Thus all apartments have roof gardens facing the sun, amazing views and street parking on the 10th floor. The Mountain appears as a suburban neighborhood of garden homes flowing over a 10-storey building – suburban living with urban density. The Mountain includes a number of sustainable technologies. Most notably, all the rainwater on the site is collected in an underground cistern and then recycled to be used as drip irrigation throughout the terraced planters.

source: BIG