Project Name: House with a Mountain View

Location: Klatovy, Czech Republic

Design Team: Stempel & Tesar Architects

Area: 246 m²

Year: 2025

Photography: Filip Šlapal

Design Features: On the rural edge of Klatovy in the Czech Republic, Stempel & Tesar Architects have completed a family home that treats landscape not as backdrop but as the organizing force behind every architectural decision. Positioned on sloping terrain at the boundary between village and forest, the 246-square-metre house negotiates its site with quiet intelligence, embedding itself into the hillside to minimise its visual presence while maximising its connection to the panoramic mountain horizon beyond.

The project’s most distinctive move is its inverted section. Where conventional houses place communal living on the ground floor, here the logic is reversed. Three bedrooms occupy the partially sunken lower level, anchored by earthy ceramic-block walls and rough plaster that root the structure firmly to the land. An internal staircase rises along the east wall to deliver residents into an expansive open-plan living space above, where floor-to-ceiling glazing spans the full length of both the north and south elevations. The ceiling follows the pitch of the roof, amplifying the sense of volume and height.

This upper level is the heart of the house. Sliding doors on either side open onto covered loggias that extend the interior into the landscape. The northern loggia gives onto a generous terrace shaded by mature trees, while the southern loggia acts as a passive solar buffer, shielding the interior from summer overheating while preserving uninterrupted views across open countryside.

The material palette is carefully calibrated between permanence and lightness. Below, earthy plaster conveys weight and rootedness. Above, titanium-zinc cladding shifts with the light, its metallic surface mirroring the movement of sky and cloud. Inside, pale tones, timber, stone, and handmade ceramics sustain a quiet, grounded atmosphere. The result is a home of considered restraint, where architecture steps back to let landscape lead.

Design Team: Founded in 2008 in Prague, Stempel & Tesar Architects is led by principals Ján Stempel and Jan Jakub Tesař. The studio has built a portfolio of over one hundred completed projects, principally in the residential typology, recognised for contextual sensitivity, material honesty, and spatial clarity.

Ján Stempel is a professor at the Faculty of Architecture of Czech Technical University in Prague and one of the foremost figures in contemporary Czech architecture. He trained at the legendary SIAL studio before serving as co-principal of the ADNS office, accumulating over four decades of professional experience. His practice is defined by a rigorous commitment to craft, material integrity, and the long-term performance of inhabited buildings.

Jan Jakub Tesař brings an internationally informed design sensibility to the partnership. He pursued graduate study at TU Delft in the Netherlands and completed a professional internship at Jeanne Dekkers Architectuur, before returning to Prague, where Stempel invited him to co-found the current studio. The practice operates under a strict authorship model: every project is directly led by both principals, supported by a permanent team of structural and building services engineers and a longstanding collaboration with landscape practice Terra Florida. Stempel & Tesar has been recognised among the top 100 architectural studios by Architect+ magazine on five consecutive occasions.