The house from the street in daylight: three storeys in white render, grey stone cladding beside the timber front door, framed balconies on the two upper floors and a dark slatted pergola over the top-floor balcony, with two cars on the drive.

Minimalistic Three Level Project

Community 14, Tema · 2025

213 square metres at Community 14, Tema. The client asked for four bedrooms, all en-suite and all of a good size. The master bedroom was to be the largest, with a bathroom big enough for a bathtub, a walk-in closet worked into the room, a small sitting area with a TV unit, and a large balcony that could be reached both from the bedroom and from outside it.

The plot is too small to fit a bedroom on the ground floor as well as the kitchen, dining area and living room, so the four bedrooms fill the two floors above. That is why the house has three levels. Downstairs, the living room and dining area share one open space, the kitchen is enclosed behind them, and the stair and a visitors’ WC sit along one side.

The first floor has three en-suite bedrooms, a lounge at the top of the stair and a balcony at the front. The second floor holds the master bedroom, with its bathroom, closet and sitting area, and a larger balcony across the front under a pergola.

Location
Community 14, Tema, Ghana
Client
Theodore Harrison Tetteh
Disciplines
Architecture, Interiors
Role
Architect and interior designer
Site area
213 m²
Status
Design complete, partly built
The house at dusk from the side: a plain white rendered wall with small windows on all three floors, the framed balconies and the pergola projecting at the front corner, and lit planting along the drive where a car is parked.
The side of the house, the balconies at the front.

What to notice

The stair arrives on the second floor outside the master bedroom, not inside it. From that landing there is a way onto the balcony that does not pass through the bedroom, and the balcony has its own WC, entered from the balcony itself. Visitors can use both with the bedroom door shut, so the master bedroom stays private without cutting the balcony off from the rest of the house.

Ground floor plan: the enclosed kitchen with its island across the back, the dining table and the living room in one open space, the stair on the left and a visitors’ WC at the front.
Ground floor.
First floor plan: three en-suite bedrooms, a lounge at the top of the stair and a balcony at the front.
First floor.
Second floor plan: the master bedroom with a sitting area and a bathroom with a bath, and a balcony across the front with its own WC.
Second floor.
The living room: a white corner sofa and two armchairs around a dark marble coffee table, facing a television set into a marble panel between lit timber shelves and slatted timber, with sliding windows onto the garden and the marble-topped dining table in the foreground.
The living room, the dining table in the foreground.
The kitchen: grey units under marble-look worktops and splashback, the sink below a window at the back, a hob and a steel extractor on the right, and an island with three timber stools on the left.
The kitchen, the island on the left.
The master bedroom: the bed against a tall upholstered headboard at the far end, a sofa and a white coffee table facing a slatted timber wall with a television on a marble panel, a desk beyond it, and a wide window on the right.
The master bedroom and its sitting area.

Where this stops being true

With every bedroom upstairs, and the master bedroom two floors up, the plan works for as long as everyone who sleeps in the house can manage the stair. If someone in the family can no longer climb, there is no bedroom downstairs to move them into, and no ground left to build one on.