Description

This small second home is set in an idyllic garden area on the outskirts of Prague. Ivan Kroupa designed a place for reflection that breathes magnanimity despite its small dimensions. One room fulfils all functions. It is divided into a main and a side area, though the space is ‘lived through’ from opening to opening on the narrow sides, thus extending it into the garden longitudinally. But Kroupa has devised a simple way of changing the space using minimal resources: the dividing wall screening the side area can be swung round to subdivide the main space. This produces an intimate bedroom area with folding bed and a multi-functional space next to it.

A ‘way through’ is built into this dividing wall, to guarantee access from both sides. Kroupa treats both the narrow sides in approximately the same way, with ceiling-high windows and doors, though there is a large, terrace-like area in front of the garden entrance on the east side. But the arrangement of the run of side-rooms is surprising at first: Kroupa’s design motif of a U-shaped folded slab, base and roof to an equal extent, actually suggests that the ‘inserted’ utility area faces the open sides of the fold and into the green of the garden. But the ‘open’ long side is completely closed.

The peripheral functions are arranged at the front to create an extraordinary spatial impression: immediate awareness of his homogeneous, wood-panelled wall fold on three levels. Hence the sculptural drama of fold and insertion asserts itself particulary in the interior.

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Originally published in: Klaus-Peter Gast, Living Plans: New Concepts for Advanced Housing, Birkhäuser, 2005.