Studio: NEUHÄUSL HUNAL
Author: David Neuhäusl, lead architect
Matěj Hunal, lead architect
Contact e-mail: nh@neuhauslhunal.cz
Social Media: instagram – @neuhauslhunal / facebook: @neuhauslhunal
Studio Address: Revoluční 24, 110 00 Prague, Czech Republic
Co-author: Veronika Paľová, Jakub Zelenák
Project Location: Prague
Project Country: Czech Republic
Project Year: 2019
Completion Year: 2020
Usable Floor Area: 56 m²
Client: Alžběta Krňanská & David Krňanský
Client’s e-mail: krnanskydavid@gmail.com, betykrnanska@gmail.com
Photographer: Radek Úlehla, hello@radekulehla.com
Furniture Production: James Duggan
About Studio
Architecture represents values of society, therefore we strive for rationality, truth, naturalness and moderate beauty in our projects. The meaning and potential of architecture go far beyond visuality. Our mission is to fulfil 100% of this potential.
We intentionally do not limit ourselves with typology, scale or budget. Regardless of whether it is a design of interior, building or urban structure, we work with immaterial relationships and meanings to create poetic spaces, pleasant places and innovative functional solutions. Since 2015.
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 apartments, art made by themselves and their friends, the secondhand lighting, or the fact that part of the reconstruction work was done self-made.
The entrance hall and the kitchen were connected by a straight-forward grid of tiles, also happily spilled on the walls. Disrupting the grid above the stove created an altar of cooking. The obligatory glass blocks illuminated the bathroom with turquoise grouting.
The 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.
