AATRIAL HOUSE - architeria.eu

AATRIAL HOUSE

Location

The house is situated in Poland, close to Opole. Majority of low density settlement
in the surroundings is formed of “cube – houses”, buildings typical for the 1970’s.

Idea

One hectare site near the forest, where the building is designed has only one weak
point: south-western access. An obvious conflict develops between the driveway
and the garden. The idea arose to lower the driveway in order to separate it from the
garden. This prompted another idea - of a driveway leading inside to the ground floor
level, from underneath the building, which became possible thanks to the creation of an
inner atrium with the driveway in it.

New type of the house

As a result, the building opens up onto all sides with its terraces in an unrestricted
manner, and the only way to get into the garden is through the atrium and the house.
This in turn has made it possible to obtain a new spatial model of the house, which is
the reverse of an atrial building. The aatrial house is closed to the inside and opened
to the surroundings.

Structure and materials

The gateway is situated in the highest point of the site sloping to the east side.
The 10 meters wide driveway following slope’s declivity, was additionally lowered
underneath the ground level, while the garden was partly raised above this level.
As a result, the garden is separated from the driveway and the surroundings
with a 2.5m high retaining wall. The building was situated on the garden level.
For the sake of neighboring buildings, typical polish “cube – houses” arisen in 1970’s
the structure of the house results from various transformations of a cube.

As a result of stretching and bending particular surfaces of the cube, all the walls,
floors and ceilings were defined, together with inner aatrium and terraces.
This principle of formation has not only created the structure of the house,
but also defined interior and exterior architecture, including use of materials.
The building is a reinforced concrete monolith, and concrete is at the same time
the finishing material of the transformed cube, while all additional elements
are finished with dark ebony. The driveway and retaining walls were made out
of quarried granite blocks, the material characteristic for the surroundings.

> Architect: Robert Konieczny - KWK PROMES
> Collaboration: Marlena Wolnik, Łukasz Prażuch
> Site area: 10 057 m2
> Usable floor area: 659,57 m2
> Volume: 2 055 m3
> Design: 2002-2003
> Construction: 2003-2006