The TerraHome Outdoor company is an official exclusive representative of premium brands of outdoor furniture and accessories for the terrace and the house. Among them are premium-quality outdoor kitchens from the Swedish company Roshults, lounge areas from SUNS (Netherlands), dining areas from KETTLER (Germany), outdoor armchairs and chairs from the Italian manufacturer FIAM, fireplace tables from the Norwegian company ELEMENTI.
The hostess of the evening and the owner of the TerraHome Outdoor showroom, Iryna Popova, welcomed the guests and told about the specifics of the company:
Iryna Popova, CEO of TerraHome Outdoor, talks about the way to create a showroom and Kostyantyn Kovshevatsky
"Terrahome is the youngest outdoor operator in Ukraine. In June, we will be only three years old. We started our journey half a year before the invasion. He was, so to speak, thorny. When Kyiv was booming, part of the staff moved to Lviv, and we decided to take advantage of this opportunity and opened a showroom there in May 2022. A month ago, the third TerraHome showroom appeared in Ivano-Frankivsk.
What sets us apart from others? Of course, we have the usual wide range of outdoor furniture, but our specialty is outdoor kitchen. It's not even a business, it's our passion. TerraHome in "Domosphere" is the only salon in Ukraine today, where street kitchens from six European companies are exhibited. These kitchens are both on display and as a ready-made solution in the warehouse, from where they can be shipped to customers. Our second specialized area is street pergolas and gazebos. We install them in three to seven days. Our course is one day: from purchase in the morning to installation in the client's yard in the evening," said Iryna Popova.
The moderator of the event, editor-in-chief of PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA Kostyantyn Kovshevatsky, immediately started the lecture by asking a somewhat philosophical question: should clients of architects and end consumers know what architects are like and what they live for?
Kostyantyn Kovshevatskyi, editor-in-chief of PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA, begins the lecture "When housing becomes housing. We arrange comfort outside the city"
At the beginning of the last century, the philosopher Roland Barthes spoke about the "death of the author". He argued that a person who reads a book, watches a film, contemplates a work of architecture, should not be interested in who the author, artist, designer lived with, what influence his parents had on him, what his financial situation was, what he read under time to work on your work. We are dealing only with the work, and every time, rereading the book, looking at the work of architecture, we must create a new concept of its manifestation or development for ourselves. And the author does not matter. Do you think we need to know how you authors live? asked Kostyantyn Kovshevatsky.
"As architects and designers, we should live the client's life, not the other way around. Therefore, the question of how much we can live this life is more important here. It is very difficult. When you design a house for temporarily resettled persons, it is one difficulty. When you're designing a 3-square-foot house with 15 bedrooms, it's hard to understand the customer's life, because you're unlikely to have lived that life. In any case, when we work with a customer, we should know as much about him as possible that the customer himself allows. Otherwise, it will be your project, your idea of this customer. And, most likely, it will be a fiasco," replied Ihor Martin.
Ihor Martin and Olga Novikova, architects, co-founders of Martins architecture & design studio, reflect on whether specialists should take on the role of the client when designing their future residential buildings
"And I still don't agree when architecture is called purely art. This is engineering science. When you design, you actually organize the space. And you do it as a mathematician, as a scientist, as a person with logic. Therefore, I probably wouldn't dare to immediately attribute it to art," added the architect.
Kostyantyn Kovshevatsky continued the conversation, noting that country architecture and country construction began to reach a new level due to the circumstances of recent years, related to the pandemic, and later - to the war, which led to the mass resettlement of Ukrainians. A real boom in the construction of suburban life has begun.
Ihor Martin agreed with him, noting that now buyers began to prefer ready-made houses with repairs and furniture.
"People, if there is an opportunity, will look at real estate outside the city. In addition, the demand on the secondary market increased. Fewer buyers currently invest in the "box", when it is still necessary to spend time (on repairs and decoration. - Editor's note)," says the architect.
Guests of the event in the TerraHome Outdoor showroom listen to the lecture "When housing becomes housing. We arrange comfort outside the city"
At the same time, according to him, there is now a significant connection between real estate sales and shelling.
"The parallel between "arrivals" and sales is so direct that if today there is an explosion somewhere, there will be no sales at all for the next three weeks, three months. If there is news somewhere about successes at the front, or a counteroffensive, or just about some positive moments, people start coming to watch. Another attack — and everything freezes again," Igor said.
Ihor Martin shares his own experience of arranging comfortable recreation areas in country houses
Olha Novikova also added that in the last 5-7 years, people are inclined to more understandable and more efficient design of houses.
"People no longer want extra space, so a more reasonable one is being designed now architecture", — Olga Novikova
Olga Novikova in the TerraHome Outdoor showroom
"If we remember zero, the end of the 90s, people built themselves horoms, palaces, something incredible. We are currently working with the premium class, but I see that people no longer want extra space. Everything should be reasonable, measured. Therefore, more intelligent architecture is being designed now," the architect shared her observations.
During the conversation, the speakers also touched on the issue of the balance between architecture and the surrounding decoration: how to use outdoor techniques to transform a house into a home, and what can make a house not only cozy, but also practical.
"Today there is a gradation by segments: comfort, business and premium, which everyone understands. And there is live development. What it is? This is when the customer has his own lifestyle, and we have to take it into account. For example, I prepare my own breakfast in the morning, and therefore there must be an expensive kitchen, certain equipment, and all this affects the design. Usually, customers do not think about what will happen tomorrow. And we try to lead them to this, to find out what a person's hobbies are, what he likes to do. Because you can design, for example, a house of thousands of square meters and then understand that a person has been engaged in music all his life, he has several instruments, and we did not design rooms for him (for practicing music. — Ed. Ed.). It happens. That's why we developed a diagram showing the minimum complex of each segment according to these types, - noted Ihor Martin.
On April 5, the TerraHome Outdoor salon together with PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA held a public event in the Kyiv showroom
He says that this process is like a game of dice. Architects try to combine rooms with the same or similar function into one group. And when necessary, give the customer the opportunity to change the functional purpose of individual spaces or expand the building.
"It used to happen that after some time the clients for whom we did projects would come back to us with the request, 'I want a spa.' Well, a person has grown up to the point that he already wants a spa. Therefore, now, when designing even some middle segment, we are trying to develop such an option in advance so that it is possible to add a new extension and that it does not look like our famous Kyiv balconies," the architect added.
Olga continued the lecture by explaining how the above three segments of residential buildings differ: comfort, business and premium.
"What do we mean when we talk about the "comfort" segment? These are small houses, perhaps in a cottage town, with an area of up to 250 square meters. m. They are usually located on a small plot of 10 acres. The location should be convenient, so that it is easy to get to the metro, there are shops and some kind of infrastructure nearby. Most often, such houses have one standard kitchen. A barbecue area and a combined recreation area are possible.
Business is houses of a larger area, up to 500 square meters. m, and larger areas. The infrastructure must be inside the settlement. Restaurants, schools and kindergartens - everything is within the boundaries of the cottage town. Such projects already have both a regular kitchen and a technical one. There are additional outdoor areas, swimming pools are added, there may be a separate fireplace area, possible gazebos, small guest houses. All this is already visible in business projects.
Kostyantyn Kovshevatsky, Olga Novikova, Vitalia Kasynets and Ihor Martin
And let's move on to the premium. Premium is from 500 sq. m. m and more. Moreover, in our case, there were even houses over 3 square meters. m. These are large, from fifty acres, building areas of the site. Additional premises are already appearing there: a guard house, covered parking for more than four cars, a separate boathouse appears if there is access to the water. Social status is very important for these people. The infrastructure is already being formed inside the building itself and on the territory," says Olga.
So, all these three categories need different approaches and filling them with different functionality. In middle-class houses from 300 to 500 sq. m. m, the barbecue is usually located very close to the dining area. And in the premium segment, the barbecue area is moved away from the dining area to separate it from dirt and to prevent ash from the grill from flying onto the table.
"For a premium, we often make one clean kitchen inside the house, we arrange a nice barbecue area on the terraces, but the barbecuer who came to cook barbecue works separately somewhere around the corner. It often happens that it is important for the owners of the house that this person does not hear what the company is talking about," says the architect.
"In general, premium houses are a very interesting story. Every time we face some new requirements. It happened that after finishing the planning of the house, the customer brought his wife to us for approval of the plan, and she asked for a long time where her cat would be. A cat must walk through a separate door, it must have its own path," Olga Novikova shares her experience.
"It is not important how we live, but how customers live. It is very difficult. This morning you are designing a rehabilitation center or some houses for reconstruction. And after 2 hours, you meet with the customer somewhere in a closed area without telephones and you have to get used to this role: "OK, we will make functional zoning for the cat", - Ihor Martin adds to Olga's story.
During the event, guests of the event had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the exposition of the TerraHome showroom and the latest outdoor objects
According to the speakers, many customers do not understand why outdoor furniture is much more expensive than interior furniture. "But for this, you probably really need to put the table somewhere outside under the sun, under the snow, under the rain. And leave it there, for example, just for a season. Then it immediately becomes clear why," says Igor.
Shelters have become a separate request in recent years. This is both a necessity and safety today. "Even those who had houses before the full-scale war are now digging something. However, today you don't need to dismantle half the house for a hiding place," says Olga, emphasizing that shelters can be built separately just on the plot near the house.
"And I especially like the trend of recent years: to arrange zones for growing greenery," she concludes.
During the event, guests of the event had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the exposition of the TerraHome showroom and the latest outdoor objects.
PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA is grateful to the BASS company for the wonderful screen on which the presentation of the lecture took place.
BASS has been designing home theaters since 2012. During the year, the company realizes about 10 unique cinema halls, none of which is repeated. BASS creates turnkey projects — from the approval of the interior design budget to the automation of the cinema management process on one remote. BASS connects control from a smartphone, tablet, as well as voice control.
