Unique 5 Bedroom home in Vientiane, Laos

We have just completed the architectural design and structural engineering of a unique home to be built in Vientiane, Laos.  The client gave us a very clear vision of the home they wanted, even providing us with a virtual 3D model.  We then took this initial concept and refined it, suggesting aesthetic and structural design changes to achieve the final design shown below.

The home is around 450 square metres in area and has five bedrooms and 6 bathrooms.  The large 6m x 12m  lounge/dining will feature a gravity defying wooden tread cantilever staircase protruding from the wall.  This leads to the master bedroom suite which occupies the entire second floor and includes walk in closet, large bathroom with spa bath, study and an extensive balcony.  Another unique feature of this house is the  large kitchen which is completely open to the garden on two sides blurring the boundary between the outside and inside. The kitchen leads onto a large covered terrace that runs the length of the home.  This terrace will look out onto a large swimming pool.







Floor going in, walls going up

We have finished casting of all of the columns and beams.  The floor slab has now been poured.  In this case we used pre-cast concrete slabs over which was laid a steel mesh.  A layer of concrete was then poured over the tope of this.  This method is much quicker than adding in supports and shuttering and then pouring one thick concrete slab.  Most of the walls have also now been built.  Due to budget constraints with this project, we are using standard blocks, rather than the thermally insulating blocks that we have used on other projects.