perníkářka manor

The historic building consist of three blocks (one of them formerly residential and two outbuildings) arranged along a semi-enclosed yard of a rectangular footprint. The volumetric design concept builds on respecting the original buildings. In our understanding, this means that the new buildings are not any higher than the existing manor and even the height of the parapetscape is closer to the cornice level than to the old Perníkářka’s ridge. This way the old building should remain the dominant vertical element in the compound. The key to how the buildings are arranged within site is working with a layout analogical to the one applied to the old manor: the same principle of a semi-enclosed courtyard, just of a bigger scale. To retain the analogy with the original manor, we did not go against the unity of the elevations, and the constant height of attics was given priority against alternatives where the number of stories would be the same and align with the grade. The positioning of the new volumes into the terrain tries to make the most of the vertical profile of the land. That means that the southernmost parts have four aboveground storeys (the lowest one corresponding with the level of the underground car park) and the northern row has only two because the grade rises to it. This system is a very efficient and economical way of dealing with a developed space minimising the number and length of roads and pavements. We work with a transferred metaphor of slicing and cutting through massive ´logs´ of the wings both longitudinally and laterally. We strictly distinguish between the principle of a rough, dark skin –´bark´ and the internal mass by using colours and lightness to tell apart ´wood´ smooth on the surface (colour screed, Trespa panels, Alucobond, and similar). Horizontally cut ´logs´ are lifted and propped along the perimeter by ´wedges´ analogically to drying lumber. That is why each element in the area between these ´boards´ (in our case the stories of middle-sized flats) has a glass finish or character – windows and solid walls (transparent or matt glass is used for windows and glass blocks in front of a solid wall). The character of the railing to this intermediate layer is also as dematerialised as possible; this particular case it is a cable net covered by climbers. In our concept, the dark, rough textured surface of the main outer facades of the new houses is a sort of analogy to rough bark of hundred years old oaks growing in a beautiful lane on the northeast border of the site. In the reality of an envelope, we can imagine them as cladding by profiled GRC panels, for example. Even the design of possible window shading elements (shutters and similar) can respond to its structure, though. In general, the materialisation of the envelope finishes can be summarised as a game of a contrast between the rough and dark outer skin and the smooth and boldly coloured areas below the bark´.