Black Lodge in Podkowa

Size-wise it’s a relatively humble abode with just three bedrooms typically found in Polish suburban middle-class areas. Yet, a couple of things make it different. In first place the location: it’s placed in Podkowa, one of the garden cities surrounding Warsaw and one of best addresses for well-to-do Warsawers who seek a harmonized surrounding protected from aggressive developments of the day. Seceond thing is that the plot is relatively shallow, so the clients, a couple with one kid, decided to open the house towards the street creating an exposed leisure space between the fence and the glazed groundfloor- not a very common approach in rather secretive and intimacy-loving Polish society. As a result the backside became a service zone. It has two parking places and a shed big enough to work as a storage space and a one-car garage. The third point is that both clients work in creative sector and they spend much of their time working remotedly. 

For this reason the house has a studio on the mezzanine that is visually connected with the void above the living zone via a glazed partition. They also like to host visiting friends, so the building has a vast guestroom with a separate bathroom. The building’s form is a simple „modern barn” typology that creates a contrast to overwhelmingly complicated shapes of residencies one can find in Polish suburban areas. To make it look even more compact and uniform the building was painted black. Thanks to this it also blends better with the surrounding trees. The abundance of greenery motivated us to design a number of skylights providing zenital light to the interiors that combine white plasterboard with plywood finishings. The main feature is a covered linear terrace opening towards the garden- an element borrowed from a typology of prefabricated houses we’ve once created for Simple House brand.