Beirut-based architecture practice Karim Nader Studio has released the recent construction photos of its retreat on the limestone bedrock of Faqra, Lebanon. 

Named On the Rocks House, it was designed as a spectacular concrete and glass retreat sitting on the limestone bedrock of Faqra, Lebanon, at 1,700 meters above sea level. 

Taking cues from the lunar landscape with scenic rock formations at the site, the area is known under the popular name of “houses of ghosts,” which is located between ski slopes and Roman ruins on Mount Lebanon, about 1-hour drive north-east of Beirut. 

On-site construction is entering the homestretch, completion of the building is slated for late 2020. 

"The small town of Faqra might be most famous for its majestic archaeological site, the most extensive of all Mount Lebanon with Roman and Byzantine ruins, and its skiing facilities," said Karim Nader Studio. 

"Once there, one cannot but be amazed by its limestone landscape, with natural rock formations carved over the centuries by rain and snow."

Karim Nader Studio has designed a new, spectacular retreat residence, deeply inspired and reminiscent of its surroundings. By carefully considering materiality and relationship to the site, the house - due for completion in late 2020 - expands the existing grey canvas of the natural surroundings into man-made fair-faced concrete volumes that accommodate the intimate functions of the house.

A house in dialogue with nature

The house is accessed by a stunning floating staircase that, cascading between the built volumes and meandering around the rocks, seems to be almost emerging from the limestone formations surrounding the house.

The thickness and the overall sense of compactness offered by the concrete enclosures is counterbalanced by a careful use of glass in a dynamic relationship that characterizes all rooms in the house. A zinc roof hovers above those apparently dispersed boxes, creating a seeming enclosure.

"But where roof happens, enclosure disappears, and where enclosure happens, roof disappears. The intimacy of enclosure is here opposed to the openness of an extreme transparency as they do not happen at once in this atypical house," said Karim Nader, founder and principal of the studio.

Each of the three bedrooms, fully cladded in wood to offer a warm environment, opens up to a small patio with a tree, a rock and a selected perspective to the outside.

The living rooms sit under the bridging roof (18m in length) and are bounded by fully operable facades to the north and south, allowing its inhabitants to enjoy sheltered outdoors space in the warmer months.

Karim Nader is one of the most prominent figures in the new Lebanese movement working to uncover the national architectural treasures, whose memories were first erased by civil war and now endangered by the common practice of demolition, in the rush towards modernizing the city.

Born during the civil war, Nader is one of the leading exponents of the new cosmopolitan generation eager to create a new conversation between heritage and modernity, hoping to change the attitude towards the past and inspiring a new attitude towards a new golden age for architecture.

Karim Nader recently completed a new residential tower as a new renovation-as-reprise intervention aiming at preserving the architectural heritage of the city. He is currently working on the renovation of the 1950s residential building of Beirut, which is a rare modernist gem of Beirut in Lebanon.

All construction images © Marwan Harmouche

All model images and drawings © Karim Nader Studio

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