But again the virus issue came only to emphasise what is already known though systematically forgotten and ignored, the urge to accelerate the process of incorporating nature in our cities in creative ways. A house that brings nature back to the city, promoting shared spaces and social dialogue between its residents is what inspired us to design the ‘’garden house’’. Our design emphasises the potential for private urban gardens and the micro-climates they create to improve living conditions within cities and slow global warming.

Not hiding behind fences and fully glazed on one side, our proposal aims to form a physical continuation of the adjacent public green area. The house seeks to establish a unified relationship between the neighbourhood, the private garden and the public park. Urban elements such as building, street and public space are not treated as absolute activities in isolation but as one single homogeneous configuration as the house becomes part of the park and the park is included in the house. The integration of green areas into the house incorporates the planting of gardens on 60% of the ground floor, the use of green terrace on first floor, the provision of bee-friendly landscapes and 40 kinds of native wildflowers.

All areas inside flow on the outer spaces and are organised around a green central courtyard placed in-between two white cubic volumes. Making space for nature in the city not only brings beauty to the urban fabric but encourages the return of local bird species and bees maintaining thus urban biodiversity; furthermore it promotes human health and well-being. We believe our proposal highlights nature's beauty in our urban lives, as a result, it creates a new standard of lifestyle in the city as well as introducing a breath of tranquillity into the neighbourhood.

When landscape becomes concept there are no boundaries. Credits: - Rabel 3D envelope - Aluminium systems - Yiannis Constantinides - Solomou landscaping - Landscape - Nicholas Solomou