Two Turkish brothers, Selman and Suha Bilal, wanted to build a house on Turkey’s north Aegean coast as a place to spend weekends in a spot where they could find beauty, tranquillity and seclusion without travelling long distances from their homes in Istanbul.

B2 House is located on the edges Büykhüsun, a small village near Ayvacik housing a tightly knit community of around 450 people who work mainly in agriculture.

Located just outside the south-east boundary of the village, the pure rectangular mass of B2 House sits on an open terraced site, unmistakably modern and separate from the traditional houses of the surrounding village, but respecting and allying itself with those houses through its use of traditional local materials and techniques.

The house opens itself to the surroundings and encourages its users not only to observe the landscape but also to immerse themselves in nature through the use of semi-external and external parts of the accommodation.

It is a place where a basic shelter becomes a space for the celebration and contemplation of nature.

The response of the Turkish architect, Han Tümertekin, to the sloping topography of the triangular site, which drops 7 metres from north to south, is also based on the local practice of terracing.

The site is divided into two flat plateaus with a difference of 1.3 metres between them, creating a long rectangular terrace, on which the house is placed, and a triangular terrace to the back of the house, which is used as a garden.

Like the local houses, B2 House is embedded in the slope of the mountainside; however, in contrast to the local building typology, there are no garden walls around B2 House.

As a result, the site is absorbed by the surrounding landscape but, at the same time, the house is set apart, appearing almost as a sculpture on a pedestal.