The first time I came to the space of “Tbilisi Hills”, I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I wanted to live here. The firstcomer always gets more choices, but the more options there are, the harder it is to choose. I knew that plots with views of Tbilisi would be more in demand and commercially justified. I walked for hours and by the aura, the view, and the trajectory of the sun’s movement, I tried to find the place with which I would feel a certain emotional bond, where I could imagine the life of our family. When I got to our plot for the first time, I immediately felt that it was exactly what I was looking for – the elevated flat plot, with a view of the monastery hidden in the greenery on the right and below – a view of a plain resembling an open palm, which still drives me crazy with the scenery of the rising and setting sun.
We bought the plot and faced an even more difficult choice. The site, given its configuration and environment, dictated to us that the house could not be standard, it had to adapt to the landscape, assimilate to the views, take into account the position of the sun, and adapt to the lifestyle of our family. It had to be ergonomic and at the same time comfortable taking into account all the functions. Additionally, we thought about how the house would fit in harmoniously with the future neighborhood, for it to appear organically from the golf course and not block the view for players and neighbors.
After considering our friends’ recommendations, we entrusted the implementation of this ambitious project to the extraordinary architect Oto Gogava. Before the first meeting with Oto, my husband daughter and I had thought about the functional distribution, arrangement, and planning of the house many times and even sketched it out on paper. Therefore, at the meeting, we clearly established how we imagined our house.
With bated breath, we waited for the first sketch of the project, which was gradually refined and completely adapted to our requirements. Working with Oto was very easy because he fully considered our lifestyle. I could see that he was designing not an architecturally interesting or beautiful house but our house, a house where we would feel good.
The architecture of the house is developed horizontally, which allows the best visibility of the view from every room, while at the same time, it is well integrated with the environment and protects the inner courtyard between the two wings of the house from the wind and adds coziness. The different levels of the roofs and the different heights of the interior ceilings proved to be technically challenging but made the architecture more interesting. The main element of the interior was the beautiful landscape around the house in large-format window walls as the main decoration of the interior – represented as paintings, bringing exterior materials into the interior and creating a geometric line of hanging walls and ceilings to achieve lightness and minimalism, which we were able to do with hidden plinths, double drop ceilings and tall doors that went up to the ceiling.
The construction took 2 years, we had to overcome many difficulties, it was not an easy task to turn the project into reality. Every idea started with the phrase “This won’t work!”. Then we would begin to figure out the technology through renderings, Pinterest mood boards, and YouTube videos and convince the builders to bring the idea to life.
During this period, our daughter left to study abroad. My husband and I were left alone and devoted all our energy and free time to construction. It turned out to be a kind of therapy, which helped us cope with the separation from our only child and let us acquire a new hobby. We moved into the house last November when we hadn’t even finished it. During the final 2 months, we had been basically living under ongoing renovations, but we were doing our best to forcefully complete the house by the New Year. They say that if you don’t stop, the renovations may go on forever.
We have been living here for almost a year and have been through all four seasons. Every time of the year here is interesting and beautiful in its own way. Starting with the amber light of autumn pouring into the interior of the house, the white fairy-tale landscapes of winter and the sound of the crackling fireplace, the silence of the morning wrapped in spring fog, and finally summer – the time of the holidays that everyone longs for since childhood, the main character of which, I must mention, is our pool, which has become a favorite place not only for us, but also for our daughter and her friends.
“What should I name it?” my friend’s child asked me when setting up the Wifi. “Sweet Sixteen” I answered without hesitation. That’s how it got its name. When I thought about it, this house is so spiritual for us that it really deserves its own name – the house in front of the sixteenth square, where we enjoy living, being together, receiving guests, and spending happy, joyful hours with them like when we were sixteen years old.
