It doesn't blend in with the landscape quite as well as the mirror-clad stealth-mode buildings popping up all over the world, but Prague's Chameleon House does have a few things in common with that most elusive of creeping things, according to a project statement from Petr Hajek Architekti. While there's no built analogues present to the chameleon's rapidly extrudable tongue or his adorable, swaying gait, the recently completed residence does have a facade consisting of a "semi-gloss coat" that "partly reflects the colours of the garden and the sky." Said goopy, textured facade won't be for everyone, but the views from the inside are what this house was built around. Each of its six wings extend from the central kitchen and dining room, forming an asterisk-shaped whole, and every one ends in a wall of glass facing a tree in the surrounding garden; an apple tree can be seen from the living room, a cherry tree from the master bedroom, a silver spruce from the guest room, and so on. Without question it's an odd bird—er, lizard—but compared to the modular party barges and rave-ready pods that the City of a Hundred Spires is home to, this pinwheel abode isn't that far out there.
The Prague-based firm goes on to say that layout of the 17,000-square-foot home "creates two different types of spaces within one plot: 'The house spaces' and 'the garden spaces,'" the latter being the intervals between the spoked rooms," which are "in fact invisible from the interior." It's unclear if they're supposed to serve some purpose that's not readily apparent (hiding unseemly vegetables?), but that much and more can be at least temporarily overlooked when the interior pulls of such a fine combination of light wood, raw concrete, and built-ins, glorious built-ins.
· Chameleon House / Petr Hajek Architekti [Arch Daily]
· All Prague coverage [Curbed National]