MadHouse by LIONarchitecture

LIONarchitecture has designed MadHouse for a family of four. Located in Kansas City in the United States, the house has a total floor area of 1,400ft² (130m²).

The topography of the site and surrounding city were strong influences on the formal output of the house from the beginning. This project is called the MadHouse, not merely because of its street address on Madison Ave, but because passers-by seem to comment on the madness of putting a house on the side of an urban cliff. The house oscillates between submersion and immersion – the site drops nearly forty feet from end to end – allowing the MadHouse to extend out of the ground nearly twenty feet. The significance of the MadHouse is that it overcomes the complex and ‘unbuildable’ nature of the site using a combination of construction technique. Though complex in construction and implementation, the simple use air, stone, and light stem from the bedrock from which it emerges. The duality of being both embedded in the ground and floating in the trees allows for an array of passive energy systems.

— LIONarchitecture

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