Detached House in Tskneti by Wunderwerk

For centuries, the mountainous belt around Tbilisi has acted as the city’s natural filter and refuge. On the eastern slope of the Trialeti Range, Tskneti marks the point where the urban grid dissolves into oak and pine forests. Once shaped by Soviet-era sanatoria and secluded dachas, the settlement later became defined by high, concrete walls that turned boundaries into social borders.

This house responds to that inherited culture of enclosure by proposing a different ethic: to live without walls. Hovering above a steep ravine that forms part of the area’s ecological ventilation system, the building touches the ground minimally – raised on concrete columns anchored to bedrock. A monolithic upper volume contains private rooms, while a glazed, open living level is suspended below, dissolving into the forest. Native planting extends the woodland into the plot, reinforcing openness and continuity between architecture and landscape.