Czech studio Šépka Architekti has completed Wardrobe House, a tall timber home on legs in the garden of a family villa in Prague’s Ořechovka district. The narrow building, fronted by a large shuttered facade, was prefabricated as a kit of wooden parts and gives two of the family’s children independent living space. Its tall, narrow body can be opened up along one side.
The family had outgrown their early 20th-century villa, and the new house was placed at the rear of the garden among a row of mature trees so that it would not compete with the original building. Founder Jan Šépka said both the design and the name came from the structure’s resemblance to a wardrobe standing on legs. Given that starting point, he said he did not really consider any material other than wood.
The lower part is a steel frame made in a workshop and lifted into place by crane, resting on micropiles chosen to limit damage to the roots of nearby trees. It encloses a covered seating area and the entrance, which is reached by a spiral staircase. Above it sits a three-storey timber structure. Each level was built off site and craned into position in a single day, and the facade is lined with plywood panels. “The entire house essentially functions like a construction kit,” Šépka said.
Inside, the plan measures just 5 by 2.5 metres, giving 34 square metres of usable space. A shared kitchen and dining area occupies the first floor, and the two floors above hold bedrooms for the children, Ema and Jan, each with its own toilet, shower and fold-down bed. Plywood matching the exterior covers almost every surface, from the walls to the built-in furniture, kitchen units and shower enclosures. Cabinets and shelves have no doors, a choice Šépka said was deliberate so that everything stays visible.
Only one elevation opens fully, with large panes of glass looking out over the trees, and the shutters can be pulled across to close it off. Šépka described the project as a reflection on how little space a person needs to live, noting that the compact footprint still accommodates a kitchen, two rooms, bathrooms, storage and beds for several people. The house joins a group of recent homes that use shutters as a defining feature, among them TIMM Architecture’s House of Iron Doors, fronted with weathered steel.
