The Breathing Beach House.

Designed by Karm Architecture Lab (KAL), The Breathing Beach House is a single-story 3-bedroom family vacation home built by the sea in Marsa Alam, Egypt. It was completed in 2021.

Due to the site’s climatic conditions and the structure’s exposed location, with temperatures reaching 50 Celsius in summer, the home’s design was heavily influenced by the environmental strategies that would protect it. Inspired by the philosophies of biomimicry and biophilia, the Breathing Beach House was designed to act as a living thing, reacting to climatic conditions to create comfortable indoor environments for its inhabitants.

Built from the exact natural stone material as the ground it stands on, the home is a celebration of the ancient desert scape that was once submerged underwater. The thick, load-bearing 45cm and 60cm earth walls retain heat during the day and allow for a slow release at night, and vice versa in winter. Additionally, the natural building blocks allow the walls to ‘breathe,’ in some cases producing droplets of condensation on the indoor wall surfaces when temperatures change, performing a cooling function similar to the perspiration of human skin.

The most predominant feature of the home is the two ventilation towers that protrude through the center of the structure like the antennas of a desert animal. One of the towers acts as a wind catcher, absorbing cooled natural air into the home, whilst the other functions as a Solar Chimney, suctioning hot air out, both designed to alternate functions during different hours of the day, acting effectively as the lungs of the home.

The floor plan was designed in a crab-like form, guaranteeing that every interior space is offered unobstructed 180-degree views of the Red Sea.

Project Lead Design: Farah Faheem
Principal Architect-in-Charge: Karim El Kafrawi
Environmental Report: Mariam Maged
Construction Management: Mahmoud Emad, Wael Ahmed
Construction Design Solutions: Mahmoud Emad, Karim El Kafrawi, Mostafa Ascar
General Management: Mostafa Ascar
Construction Engineering: Mohamed Sobhy, Ahmed Adel
Structural Engineering Consultants: Civil-Arch Consultants
Local Limestone Construction Expert: Mohamed Abulhassan
Site Technicians: Ahmed Awad, Badawy El Bar, Mohamed Anwar, Abdelrahman Gebely, Alaa Eid