Polish architect Jakub Szcz?sny has designed a house in Podkowa Le?na – a small town near Warsaw, which has the status of a natural and cultural monument. Partly due to this status, the design needed to maintain maximum of existing trees on the plot that could be obtained only through fitting structure’s shape into the trees.
To achieve this, the architect applied the Voronoi diagram: the layout of trees was triangulated and the lines were divided in two by perpendiculars that were offset appoaching the trunks as much as possible. This way, the layout of a zero level was developed. It was also elevated on about one metre above the ground, and the level below was retracted to avoid damaging root systems of surrounding trees.
From the outside, the house is covered with wooden planks made of Siberian cedar. The roof houses a number of skylights and has the best geometry for getting rid of fallen leaves.
Ground floor is composed of a night (with five bedrooms and three bathrooms, a workspace and two wardrobes) and day (entry, living, dining and kitchen) zones. It is cut with three patios for visual continuity and maintenance of trees growing in the middle of the perimeter of the house. The day and night zones are divided by a long wall covered with a vivid mural created by a Polish artist Maurycy Gomulicki, who also proposed a post-orgasmic chill ceiling mural in the master bedroom. Pawe? Jasiewicz, a renowed and specialized wooden furniture designer, designed a special convertible table that fits the triangular shape of the room and can host from 8 to 20 people. Kuba B?kowski was invited to develop a series of in-situ art installations based on video projections. Since January 2014, two were realized.
PROJECT DATA:
Architecture: Jakub Szcz?sny (Centrala), Ryszard Szcz?sny (Studio Deco)
Author’s cooperation: Tomasz Fabirkiewicz
Structural design: S?awomir Pucek, Ryszard Nalepski
Landscape design: Robert Nowicki (Urbandesign)
Table design: Pawe? Jasiewicz
Murals: Maurycy Gomulicki
In-situ art installations: Kuba B?kowski
Photos: Radek Wojnar
Contractor: Nowy Konstancin
Design period: 2009-2011
Construction: 2011-2013