Rafa Villa stands in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the place Bandar Almansoour Architects rework the Saudi home as a up to date residence rooted in Diriyah. Conceived in 2026, the home attracts on courtyards, shifting ranges, and semi-open thresholds to steadiness privateness, daylight, and a robust connection to its setting. The result’s compact in footprint however intentionally expansive in sequence and spatial impact.
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About Rafa Villa
Rafa Villa takes form on the fringe of Wadi Hanifah in Diriyah, inside a residential improvement of 20 personal villas organized throughout two architectural typologies. The undertaking sits in a setting marked by each panorama and historical past, and its design works from that situation with out resorting to direct imitation.
Bandar Almansoour Architects deal with the home as a up to date studying of the standard Saudi dwelling. Climatic extremes, privateness, and the necessity for pure mild and air flow all inform the plan. Fairly than counting on a single gesture, the design builds its character via courtyards, layered outside rooms, and thresholds that transfer between enclosed and open house.
A central problem is scale. The home seeks a way of breadth inside a compact footprint of about 300 sqm, and it does so by breaking away from inflexible floor-by-floor separation. Break up mezzanine ranges permit rooms to cascade visually into each other, extending sightlines and giving the inside a extra open studying whereas nonetheless preserving distinct zones of use.
The arrival sequence is dealt with as a development slightly than a direct entry. Guests move via a shaded threshold that compresses the method earlier than opening the home extra absolutely. An exterior staircase clad in Diriyah Tan hyperlinks decrease and higher ranges via an open terrace and remembers parts of conventional Diriyah structure. The route reinforces one of many undertaking’s clearest issues: the fixed alternate between shadow and light-weight.
That alternate continues throughout the outside. The villas are composed via a cautious steadiness of strong and void, utilizing mass and openings to manage privateness, daylight, and rhythm. Exterior partitions are clad in up to date heritage brick, folded to provide depth and altering shadow via the day. On the entrance facades, a reinterpreted triangular geometry offers the event a recognizable identification whereas staying tied to native proportion and kind.
Openings are positioned to border views and mood daylight, strengthening the connection between inside and exterior house. Entrance gates subtly revisit the proportions of conventional Diriyah structure, and every villa receives its personal entrance expression. Even so, the undertaking maintains a constant cadence throughout the broader improvement.
Inside, the home makes use of degree modifications to outline hierarchy. The majlis is gently recessed, giving it a extra grounded and formal presence, whereas the household residing space and kitchen are lifted barely above. This straightforward shift in part distinguishes private and non-private modes of inhabitation with out counting on onerous boundaries.
Two courtyards anchor the bottom flooring and produce mild from opposing instructions. Their presence helps animate the rooms round them, whereas red-toned brick surfaces mirror heat deeper into the inside. Skylights add one other layer of illumination, carrying pure mild additional inside and supporting the undertaking’s goal of openness inside a comparatively compact plan.
Materials selections stay restrained. Diriyah Tan surfaces, purple brick textures, and metal-clad characteristic parts give the home depth with out extreme distinction. Customized patterns sharpen that impact, including texture and element whereas conserving the general language cohesive. In Rafa Villa, spaciousness comes much less from measurement than from sequence, mild, and the cautious spacing of strong kind towards open air.
Images courtesy of Bandar Almansoour Architects
Go to Bandar Almansoour Architects
– by Matt Watts
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