Atrium house / 2017

Plots for single-family houses in Poland are either too small or too large.

The dream of a Pole is a detached single-family house, while the plots for this purpose are almost always grossly too small. The minimum plot area determined by the zoning development plan is usually 600 m2, i.e. with a good proportion of 20 x 30 m. The plot of 800m is considered too large, but the front width rarely exceeds 20m, and the depth increases at most. By subtracting 2 x 4m for the distance of the wall with window openings from the border with the neighbour as required by the construction law, the house itself is usually not more than 12m wide, and there is not much space for the back garden. The two-story houses are 8 meters away from each other, peering into each other’s windows. In order to ensure a bit of privacy, residents build “thuja walls” on the borders.

Rational residents of the Netherlands or the British Isles know that even on a smaller area, a much better garden can be obtained in terms of use, using terraced houses and full walls on the border with the neighbour. Nobody looks through the windows, the perspective of the garden is quite big, the walls with the neighbour do not need to be insulated, and the houses warm each other. Poles know better.
The plot in Łaziska was as usual. 800m2, to the east a neighbour 4m from the border, a terrace even closer, to the west a future neighbour (probably the same as to the east), a barn to the south (not yet historic). Standard.
Where to look at? On the road and on the other side of the forest? Apart from the fact that there is a beautiful LV cable hanging there, the road leading to a nearby housing estate did not seem like a good place to look at.

You have to look at yourself.

We designed the house as a “top to bottom” rectangle with solid walls on the sides. Thanks to this, we have kept some space in the back with the one-story building.
We perforated the volume of the house with three atriums. The atrium at the entrance acts like a buffer separating the house from the road. The large – middle one is the heart of the house, an extension of the living room, a place that can be easily reached from any room in the house. Finally, the smallest one, overlooking the garden, completely belonging to the owners’ bedroom, intended for morning coffee in a bathrobe or meetings with friends. With a view of the garden, because it was managed to find it not as a usable space, but only a picture for viewing. The windows of all bedrooms face this way and have no divisions, which makes them a frame framing the view. At the end of the garden, the greenery should cover the barn until it topples over. Such a year-round mural.

The house is one of the series that have been created in our studio in recent years, and which we call “inbred”, that is, to its interior in order to give the residents a minimum of intimacy on the plot too small for a detached house.