Few coastal locations in Northern Europe carry the burden of SAR foundations – four grass-covered Soviet-era military shelters and the remnants of an occupation that reshaped both the Baltic landscape and its people. Instead of erasing this story, based on Riga OAD Founder and lead architect Zane Tetere-Sulce folds it into a workspace. The question at the heart of the project is not just how to build on the coast of Latvia, where dune erosion, protected habitats and rising Baltic waters make construction increasingly crowded, but how to build with a charged site – where architecture, over time and overdevelopment, has become almost indistinguishable from the landscape.
Discovered as a cluster of dilapidated military remains, the site’s four bunkers are repurposed into a complex for a multi-generational family – a main house and two guesthouses – shifting their original defensive logic towards a contemporary domestic reading of the bunker.
The two lodges, with their roofs sown with living grass, sink back into the dune habitat they occupy, extending the ecological logic of the site rather than interrupting it. Their forms are loosely derived from the original deposits, expanding habitats for local fauna while maintaining a low, almost vestigial profile against the shifting sands. The main residence takes the opposite stance – bridging two warehouse foundations and entering below, it raises its main living floor above the sea horizon. Life begins on the second level, where the communal spaces hover just above the landscape, forming a deliberate tension between levitation and grounding.
OAD goes on to explain, “Instead of focusing on the conflict of a military site, the focus is on the core purpose of the shelter – to keep its residents safe from the hostile external environment. Our intention was to explore the issues of safety and security in a different context rather than trying to rewrite history.” Designed as a “safe haven” for three generations, the project directly responds to the region’s harsh coastal conditions, where northerly winds are strong enough to bend centuries-old pine trees.
In the hostels, the deep windows create a bunker-like atmosphere, reinforcing this language of protection. The same vocabulary is carried over to the main house, where the structural supports of the ground floor offer a crude reference to Soviet military architecture, anchoring the elevated volume above.
The roof of the main house is the most technically revealing element of the project. Its sharp double-sloped profile follows strict local regulations typical of this coastline, yet OAD reinforces the form through fiber cement cladding – a modern reinterpretation that subtly hints at Soviet-era materiality. Faced with the challenge of suspending such a mass above a fully glazed facade, the studio developed a special metal frame, deliberately left exposed as both structure and expression.
The overhang on the south face is carefully graded, with upward sloping floors that shield the interiors from the summer sun while drawing in the low-angle light that defines Baltic afternoons. The result is a roof that acts as both an environmental mediator and a psychological anchor – its weight offsetting the transparency below.
In the words of Tetere-Sulce, “Local architectural regulations mandated a double pitched roof – we chose to lean into this limitation. By enhancing the proportions of the roof, we aimed to evoke a sense of grounded weight to psychologically deepen the sense of security. This heavy structure also acts as a counterweight to the building above the light ground. The protective weight of the top balances the opening below.’
Inside, the architectural language is restrained, almost ascetic. Concrete floors, wooden surfaces and tactile finishes replace the texture of paint, aligning with OAD’s broader approach of letting materiality convey atmosphere. A wood-paneled vaulted ceiling further accentuates the volume in the main living space, while the expansive glass facade dissolves any clear boundary between interior and exterior.
The design follows the rhythm of the day: morning light floods the main living terrace and communal areas, while the master bedroom openings are oriented to the west to capture long Baltic sunsets. Throughout the complex, the architecture resists over-domestication, allowing the centuries-old pines, the sheltered dune landscape and the encroaching sea to remain the dominant forces.
SAR ultimately reads less as an imposition on the land and more as a calibrated response to it – a project that, in Tetere-Sulce’s words, “does not conquer the land but lives lightly on it,” reframing a site once defined by defense into one shaped by quiet resilience.
See more information on OAD’s website.
Photo by Alvis Rosenberg.
