It was previously expressionless. The house was characterised by the standard, modern architecture of the 2000s. Its owners wanted a change. They wanted to extend it and change its external appearance. By remodelling the house from the Miks.tura Architekci design catalogue, they gained more space and a new quality.
As early as the 1990s, single-family houses began to fill the Polish landscape intensively. Not everyone was aware that a house design could be commissioned from architectural offices, which is why building a house from a catalogue was so common. Now this is changing, and Poles are increasingly commissioning a single-family building design from a specific studio whose architectural portfolio they know well.
The conversion concerns a house from the early 21st century. The building had served its purpose very well for a long time. Although the owners valued its atmosphere, over the years they felt the need to refresh the space and adapt it to their new needs.
The new need was to have more space. The owners wanted to add a storey above the living area, expanding the night area and create an additional wing with a gym and ground floor room. The remodelling was also intended to extend the usable outdoor area on the lake side.
Redeveloping the existing fabric is a difficult task. The challenge was to make these changes in such a way as to harmoniously combine the new functionality with the existing architecture, while avoiding overly modern forms. The architects had to find a golden mean so that the new part did not overwhelm the old one. They found one.
This is what the building looked like BEFORE it was rebuilt:
We noticed that the house’s previous architecture was mainly based on vertical lines, which made the building appear somewhat alienated against the vast plot. To give the house a more tailored look to the site, we shifted the emphasis to horizontal lines. We took advantage of the existing roof geometry and steel railings to create terrace canopies that visually lengthened the body of the building. We also introduced these elements on the first floor, which gave coherence to the whole and emphasised the new character of the house. The building became more open to the surrounding space, blending in better with the landscape of the plot,” explain the architects.
During the works, it was decided to leave parts of the façade made of exotic wood. This is one of the investors’ favourite elements. Wood gives the building warmth and character. The designers decided to use this motif by combining the red of the wood with the beige of the travertine and the decorative plaster. In this way, they combined the old with the new.
The objective of the conversion – to make the new version of the house look like the original house was always meant to look – was achieved, while also proving that you don’t always have to start from scratch to achieve atmospheric architecture, the authors of the conversion project conclude.
project: Mik.stura Architekci(www.mikstura-architekci.pl)
photos: Mik.stura Architekci Aleksandra Zielińska
Also read: single-family house | Metamorphosis | Architecture in Poland | Facade | whiteMAD on Instagram
