A family of academic artists contacted our studio by the end of summer 2019 regarding the reconstruction of a fairly small apartment in a panel house on Červený vrch. The apartment required complete reconstruction to suit a young family with a toddler.

Clients had chosen our atelier based on our previous realization of the Concrete apartment. The very decisive limit of the project was the restricted budget, however in this case, fairly compensated by the mutual understanding between us architects and the clients. The answer, for a particular assignment, was an architecture of improvisation, relaxed and free space shoving potential to its users. The core of the design creates life itself – the furniture from clients’ old apartment, art made by themselves and their friends, the secondhand lighting, or the fact that part of the reconstruction work was done self-made.

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

The entrance hall and the kitchen were connected by a straight-forward grid of tiles, also happily spilled on the walls. Disrupting of the grid above the stove created an altar of cooking. The obligatory glassblocks illuminated the bathroom with turquoise grouting. A beautiful original wooden floors in the rooms were refurbished.

The original doors were demolished, and the openings in the concrete walls were kept roughly cut. Further, the load-bearing walls and ceilings were cleaned to concrete as far as possible. Finally, installed tin doors allow for creative work with magnets and complete the avant-garde character of the corridor contrasting with the coziness of the living rooms. Within the layout, significant construction changes did not occur.

However, the living space was functionally connected to the bedroom, which allowed an independent (children’s) room to emerge. In terms of furniture, using plywood, we have created three major interventions: multifunctional open storage block in the hall, full wall block of cabinets in the main room, and complete kitchen with dining corner.

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

PHOTOS BY Radek Úlehla

Collaborators: Veronika Paľová, Jakub Zelenák, James Duggan