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Architects: Paweł Litwinowicz, Piotr Kluj
- Area: 177 m²
- Year: 2013
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Photographs:Jeremi Buczkowski , Anna B. Gregorczyk
Text description provided by the architects. Originally, the building was an example of a typical semi-detached house, very popular in Poland in the 70's. Simple and regular in their shape, with regular windows and balconies, so-called ‘cubes’ did not stand out from the contemporary architecture at all. Buying the house the Investor assumed that it will have to be rebuild to meet his needs.
At first, the building was to become very contemporary in its shape. The only thing that clashed with the idea were the old, Art Nouveau furniture collected by the Investor in his previous apartment, which had to be adapted certainly in the new one. What is more, there was a need for a double garage with a convenient entry, an exit to the garden straight form he living room located on the elevated ground floor and also an entry from the front of the building, not from the side like it used to be.
To give the building contemporary quality the shape was completely simplified and turned into a simple cube with no balconies and oriels whatsoever. The location of the house on the premises far away from the front line gave the possibility to create a long and wide ramp leading to the garage.
On this occasion an idea appeared to design the same entry to the ground floor – also through a ramp but this one supposed to surround the house. This kind of elevation of the land solved to problem of the entry to the garden straight form the living room and also let us avoid building the external stairs.
To locate the entrance to the house at the front of the building, a part of it was extended like a drawer, that actually divided the ramp into the entrance one and garden one – private.
The thing that also changed the quality of the house is the elevation which was designed in such a way to see-through the house by adding a lot of glass in the front and the back of the building. To finish the unglazed parts the veneered panels in natural wood were used. Moreover, to give the bedroom and bathroom more intimacy in some elements there were the cut-outs created and they covered the windows. The shapes of the cut-outs correspond with the plants patterns on the old furniture, which according to the Investor’s wishes became the interior equipment of the new house.
These openwork ornaments, visible only in two places on the house elevation, are at the same time its one and only decoration and also the only link between the contemporary cube and the Art Nouveau furniture.
