A wood and stone retreat among the pines

The surrounding wooded landscape plays a central role in shaping this contemporary home marked by solidity, minimalism and material appeal, as well as a powerful emotional and visual connection between indoors and outdoors. Located south of Kyiv, the house was built in 2021 on a small estate surrounded by ancient pine trees. Its exterior façades are clad in dark ceramic bricks in a coordinating colour with that of the pine trunks, while the roof is finished in graphite shingles. The current owner purchased the house in an almost completed state but without any interior finishes, leaving the Ukrainian firm AVArchitects to oversee the entire design process. Their approach embraced “almost raw, imperfect materials, worked to create asymmetrical textures for a home capable of aging gracefully, displaying the marks of time with elegance”. Wood and stone dominate every living space, forming a palette of deep, warm and immersive tones from which white is intentionally excluded.

Designed with the comfort of the owner’s dogs in mind, the interior of the house is animal-friendly and reflects a deep sense of continuity with nature and the surrounding forest. As architect Oleksandra Vdovychenko explains: “A 100-year-old piece of cracked wood is given a new lease of life; a large stone can serve multiple purposes, such as a table or a stool. The outside world may be bright, stormy or even artificial, but at home, we need a peaceful place where we can rest and reconnect with nature, whether lying in bed or simply stepping across the floor.”

The 250-square-metre house has an open-plan ground floor consisting of a living area, a spacious kitchen, a bathroom, a guest bedroom and a cloakroom. The upper level features a master suite with a private bath and walk-in wardrobe, an additional guest bedroom, a large dressing room, an ikebana workshop with a concealed sleeping area, and another bathroom.

The interior design favours wood in all its forms – natural, oiled, blonde, grey, cracked, knotted or richly grained – used for the parquet flooring, wall panelling and burnt larch details with their unique black, rough texture. The architects combined a total of seven different wood finishes, establishing a dialogue between this material and the black ceramic floor tiles and the natural stone-effect surfaces in the bathrooms. The walls are finished with concrete-effect plaster, while the guest bedroom features a rock-effect surface.

The stone-inspired Origini collection from Gardenia Orchidea fits seamlessly into the home’s stylistic concept and design vision. The selected ceramic slabs integrate effortlessly with the other materials, delivering both aesthetic appeal and a high level of functional performance. Used on the floors and walls in the kitchen, hallways and bathrooms, these spaces become elegant stone ambiences characterised by a variety of installation patterns using 100×100 cm and 60×60 cm sizes and the T36 and Spaccato mosaics.