A fine balance

摘要

For a holiday house, the basic brief is straightforward: build a habitable and enticing temporary home in an attractive location and the visitors will come. Add a bit of charm and they might return.rnMVRDV's Balancing Barn, however, is not an ordinary holiday house-it's a Living Architecture house. Set up by Swiss writer Alain de Botton, his wife Charlotte and Mark Robinson (former project manager of the Serpentine Pavilion), Living Architecture's built products must not only serve up comfy bed and board to its holidaying punters, but also provocation. They must encourage the general public to reconsider their perspective on both modern architecture and the countryside.