SKEN

Recreational weekend house. In other words a cabin in the woods. Object situated in a beautiful old garden, in a village called Banka, near Pieštany. Active recovery, natural and herbal treatment.

The future owner of this house approached us with the intention of building a small recreational retreat. This object should serve as a hideway for family recreation, fullbody recovery embosomed in a natural environment. This retreat is also offering services in the field of natural and herbal therapy.

Object will be earthbound meaning it is a single-storey house, with irregular - organic floor plan. The roof is also flat and organically shaped, with extensive greenery found there. House will not contain a garage. We have decided to have an open paved parking space for four cars. The whole composition of the house will strongly resemble a classic cottage. We just added  some space for natural healing processes, a winter garden and a shaping area with sauna and outdoor whirlpool.

The location is characterized by a very dense natural environment in the middle of  an ancient forests. This weekend house will stand on a flat surface, in the middle of garden oasis. Access to the plot is secured via a paved road lead parallel to eastern limit. The plot itself is a garden and contains a large number of older trees, which our proposal tries to preserve. 

Our architectural concept used on this kind of land comes from a basic scheme, we have made in preparation, due to come to the best solution. First step was to place the building in a way that we dont ruin any tree. Another point is to divide the garden around the future building into several smaller parts. This allows us to create separate views from interior into landscape. In this way, a greater degree of experience is achieved. The internal division of the building follows the intention to divide the building into several wings, which will provide a certain degree of privacy for both the bedroom and wellness. 

The final solution is to divided this object into three layout wings recalling a star shape. The first part of the wing starts in direction against the entrance to the estate. We call it the north wing and it is adjacent to entrance (service) road. It is the shortest of the following  wings described. It contains paved area with partially covered parking lot, technical and storage rooms, as well as the entrance hall with wardrobe and hygiene. Directly behind the north wing is the central part of the building, which serves as the main living room. It would be a mistake not to mention a transparent wine chamber, appearing almost like a interior jewel, set in the living room. The central hall serves as access to the other two layout wings of the building.

The south wing will serve as a relaxation area. Here you can have massages and herbal treatment. For this purpose, we had to design adjacent rooms in this wing. Namely therapeutic room, relaxation and rest room, room for mixing medicinal herbs, and winter garden for meditations and social facilities for clients. From the area of relaxation there is a separate south terrace in the form of a covered loggia. All the described operating rooms of the south wing can, if necessary, also be used as three guest rooms for the purpose of renting.

The third, last wing of our composition, is the western wing. It has the functionality- living and hygienic facilities of the owner. It will include a bedroom with a separate wardrobe, a bathroom, a toilet and a sauna. The owner's bedroom , we are sorry, will not be the subject of hire :). The sanitary facilities with a sauna are connected to a separate, open west terrace, which contains an outdoor whirlpool. The sauna area is also accessible from the main covered terrace, which is located by the central hall and contains a summer outdoor kitchen with outdoor dining area. 

Architects: Braňo Hovorka, Martin Paulíny, Natália Galko Michalová, Veronika Kochaníková, Lenka Kopfová
Location: Banka, district Piešťany
Design, project: 2020-2021
Construction: in progress