Zaha Hadid’s First And Only Private Residence Look Like A Spaceship

Designed by the late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid for Russian businessman and philanthropist Valadislav Doronin, a house in the Barvikha Forest near Moscow, for a man she called the “Russian James Bond”. Doronin is the owner and chairman of Aman, a chain of luxury hotels, residences and resorts.

The house’s defining feature is a master suite set atop a slender concrete stalk that raises it high above the tree canopy, set 22 metres above the ground, this element of the design offers Doronin complete seclusion. The house comprised of entertainment spaces, an indoor swimming pool, fitness and massage areas, sauna and hammam, as well as guest rooms and exterior terraces.


Three generous floors partially embedded in the sloping terrain below feature angled glass facades facing into the forest. Broad roofs with irregularly stepped edges overhang the glass walls of each floor.

The idea for the project was first started over a decade ago, when Doronin, who met Hadid a decade ago, is reportedly very pleased with his home. “This striking and ambitious building is testimony to her genius,” he said, adding that he was sold from the moment he saw Hadid’s initial sketches on a napkin. “She created the perfect livable sculpture.”