Administrative building in Strančice

Architect: Architektura s.r.o. | David Kraus

Address: Svojšovice 27, Strančice, Czech Republic

Investor:Valnetis, a.s.

Project:2012

Completion:2015-16

Built Up Area:530 m²

Built Up Space:2235 m³

Price:18 000 000 CZK

office buildings

reinforced concrete

Companies

Filip Šlapal

Fotograf

Literatura

STAVBA
2017 / 4

Business Media CZ, s.r.o., 2017

100 Kč

An administrative headquarters of a company that distributes and produces concrete mixtures, whose management is inclined towards alternative technologies, energy sources, and construction methods. A raw, authentic place with the scent of work and persistent noise. The industrial character of the site has a strong atmosphere due to the ever-awake concrete plant and the forty-meter storage silo across the street. An experiment with the consent of the clients. The nature of the activities is reflected in the disordered and unrefined expression of the structure, which is entirely a cast of concrete. It is not a minimalist form in the guise of sandwiches or multi-layer sophisticated walls, which would make the building appear monolithic, while its "concrete" expression would come at a price; rather, it is a solid, robust, and sheer concrete cast. The insulating concretes were tested before construction, and their actual thermal insulation properties were verified prior to realization. A concrete creature, whose form arises solely from the function of operations, relations to the surroundings, the movement of the sun, and the movement of cars and people around it. It is not beautiful; it is not a plan. The grown trees were preserved; the house has avoided them, as well as the giant entrance gate to the concrete plant, all of which shaped the house. Exposed concrete of various textures is found on the floors, ceilings, and walls; the object itself, including the roof, is poured from approximately one-meter walls, without additional cladding, modifications, or finishing work. The patterns on the facade are not an attempt at beauty but a flaw in pouring the wall. Many things did not work out. Necessary installations are visible, routed externally; the windows are the eyes of the house. Parking is on the roof of the building (to save space necessary for the operation of the concrete plant, through the glazed openings on the roof it will be possible to see cars from below, into their underbody and exhausts). A photovoltaic power plant with chargers for electric vehicles, which currently park inside the building (the management of the company are long-term fans of them, though the author is not), will be constructed on the roof. The building itself conceals elements that have been developed in a long-term amateur manner by the investor (10-meter folding gates serving as deep roofing before the entrance, a prototype robot for masonry on site, whose development is still in process, details of railings, sliding glass, heating of the building, etc.). Overall, it was a lively, rather unplanned mutual process and communication between me and the investor (often from a distance via phone), improvisation, which now reassures both the client and me as an architect that it is possible to do things oneself, gradually, with joy in creation, somewhat amateurishly, uncertified, without attestations or regulations. Then one can still be a curious child, a playful boy, and a creator of one's own environment. As an author, I have learned much through the client using his method of smile-attempt-error-success.

One day I want to build a tower of the four elements like this.

David Kraus

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