In a number of projects, we work on the design of small settlement centers. We think about their physical form in relation to the life that happens in them. These are urban planning projects, studies of public spaces, street reconstruction designs, architectural concepts of municipalities, projects of major municipal and urban institutions.

In this case, the design deals with a new Slovak city near Bratislava. In the area of the Danubian Lowland, a flat area with no clear landmarks, to which we are usually accustomed in our work. The design is about defining the centre, the identity of the new city, which absorbs the two current towns into itself.

A small family house with an archetypal shape and a distinctive wooden structure. Wooden building based on footings. The ground floor has an entrance hall, bathroom and a living room with a kitchenette. Quiet, wood-scented space framed by a symmetrical structure. Connected to the garden view in all seasons. In winter, there is heat coming from the fireplace in the middle of the layout. A bedroom and a guest room on the first floor.

The parking house is primarily large utilitarian building. Like an electrical substation, for example, it can only take up space. However, our design uses the size of the building and its content as an opportunity. It is not just a box, it is the entrance to the Regional Office, to the Frágner House of Arts, to the Regional Library, to the Tax Office, to Třída 28. října Street – and it is necessary to perceive it as these things.

The new building completes the urban spaces in its surroundings, making them clearly legible. In the foreground, it completes an urban avenue lined with major institutions and the new piazza that emphasizes the importance of the Regional Office. It creates city streets on its sides and, in its estuary it gives rise to an open green courtyard with a children’s playground. In addition, it brings architectural qualities. The building has clearly legible basic elements – commercial parterre with a portico, pedestrian entrance to garages, side entrance for cars to garages.

It has a basic tectonic order in the form of a solid two-storey plinth, a fine shaft and a sublime crown of the house. In addition, it brings haptic material qualities in the form of high-quality prefabricated and monolithic plinth panels, processing of parterre windows, high-quality large-format paving in its surroundings and epoxy gravel in the interior.

The interior layout of the building is very simple. For many drivers, parking in a parking house is an unpleasant complication. Thus, the vertical movement between the floors is separated from the horizontal movement on the floor. The traffic in the building is mostly one-way. The directions of the exit, the pedestrian corridors (for escape exits and vertical roads), as well as the system showing the number of free parking places on the floor are well marked. Ramps are internal, one-way, single-lane, straight. The building is fully barrier-free, yet the parking places for disabled are located on the 1st floor.

There are several buildings, spaces and institutions in the vicinity of the Statenice square that play or in the future may play an important social role in the village and co-create its center.

The intention is that the individual parts are clear in their function and at the same time, co-create a strong and functional whole. What does it mean? Simply, for example, that every passer-by knows where he is and what the village square is. That he understands what the purpose of the village square is and finds the municipal office where he expects it to be, including finding the entry to it. In addition, it means that the user is just as intuitively oriented inside the building. However, clear orientation is not the only goal.
The second goal needed to be mentioned is to create a space for any occasion – that the correct setting of the space initiates events that we can only imagine at the moment. Whether it’s a pilgrimage in the castle garden, birthday parties or an open-air wedding. However, we do not only accommodate large events. We create spaces that encourage you to stay in the center on the way from school or work. To hang out with a bottle of beer in front of the grocery store or by the creek. Overall, it is important that the village square or the center is lively (which does not mean the permanent presence of carousels and crowds though).

We propose to calm traffic in the center of the village by introducing a 30 km/h zone from the narrowing of Statenická street near the castle to Sokolovna. We then “connect” the individual parts of the mentioned mosaic to it.

Part of the design is to verify the location of the town hall building, shop, community center, kindergarten and verify the possibilities of the Sokol gym building.

Life in the village is closely connected with life in the garden and with close contact with the surroundings. Therefore, and for a number of other reasons, we are not designing one large compact house, but three horizontal apartment buildings and a solitaire nursing home with a community center. They’re connected to the local buildings by their character. The apartments allow each inhabitant to manage a piece of their own front garden and continue the way of life they were used to, but at the same time provide the comfort of a modern barrier-free building.