Architecture
Aatrial House, Poland
Architecture
Aatrial House, built for a family of three, rises from a beautiful open site not far from Opole in the Southern Polish region of Silesia. The plot had one main drawback; access. To avoid having the driveway running right through the garden, the access was partly sunk into the ground and the garden level raised, using tonnes of earth trucked in from a nearby highway construction site.
The house's inner atrium arose out of the way the road rises up in the heart of the house - from a distance, the clean, modern lines give nothing away, but as the motorist approaches the cobbled roadway dips away beneath the building, then rises up to the internal courtyard.
The traditional functions of an atrium - conversation, circulation and relaxation - have been replaced by those of traffic and entry.
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KWK PROMES, the only Polish practice in this year's 101 Architects directory, was founded by partners Robert Konieczny and Marlena Wolnik in 1999, and has offices in Ireland and Poland.
Their modern aesthetic is well represented by this expansive new villa, with its sharp details, like the skewed steel and glass staircase, scattered around the minimally furnished living spaces.
The house opens up to the landscape on all sides, thanks to large expanses of glass and terraces that reach into into the garden, along with a reflecting pool. In contrast, the central atrium space has just five windows. Here the standard plan of the classic Roman atrium has been redefined: Aatrial House closes inwards and opens outwards.
