Atrium house
The family house in Budajenő seeks answers to the architectural problems and questions that arise essentially by the concept of shaping. The heterogeneous and still emerging character of the newly built-up part of the settlement has led to a layout in which the spaces of the house are organised around an inner courtyard. The interlocking roofs give the house a characteristic silhouette of varying heights, presenting a constantly changing image. The massing also results in low eaves of the inner courtyard to create a human scale. The form undoubtedly gives the house its character.
The conceptually defined mass is articulated by cut-out transitional spaces that surround the house further enriching the relationship between the inside and outside spaces. On the north side, a covered open space protects the entrance, to the west it helps to shade the courtyard opening, and to the south it connects the rear courtyard and atrium.
The interior spaces of the intertwined cubes are organised around the enclosed courtyard, with a dominant visual connection on all sides to the inner garden. A prominent feature of the house is the common space of the living and dining room, where the contours of the interior take up the lines of the mass. This space, as the central room of the house, is connected to both the inner garden and the backyard, with full-view windows creating an intense connection between inside and outside. The roof space of the street wing houses the galleries for the children's rooms, while the north roof has an attic for storage.
A strong element that defines the identity of the building, in addition to the mass, is the perforated wall that encloses the atrium, where the inhabitants, who have Arab ancestry, can see geometric patterns typical of their culture in the repetitive structure of concrete fence nodes. The richness of detail in the pattern of small-scale elements that recur on all sides of the facades breaks the monotony of the plastered surfaces, which is further broken up by the path that runs around the inner courtyard, dividing the facade into sections of different textures. The high, recessed window of the living room and the window set on the outer plane of the wall of the reading corner, enrich the details of the house as a counterpoint.
The result is a play of forms that has created a new living space for a family. The clients already live here and now they are the ones who continue to shape their home.
