Family house for a race car driver

When clients describe their dreams of living, their interests and hobbies usually influence the appearance of the future house. After all, delving into these dreams—intentionally calling them dreams and not requirements—is the path to a successful design of a family house for a specific person. However, it is not common for the impact on the appearance of the house to be as radical as it was for the family house in Bašť. Moreover, it concerns the hobby of only one of the spouses.
The main motive of the building became the garage, which defined the volume and layout of the whole family house. We generally discourage clients from building a “living room” for a car—i.e., a garage. It can be easily calculated that this is a non-returnable investment that also increases the operating costs of the house. Here, however, the garage serves as a workshop for a racing driver! The garage is part of the house’s volume in order to minimize the built-up area on a relatively small plot while achieving a simple and compact building that is economical in both construction and operation. Additionally, the workshop needs to be heated in the winter months, not just tempered.
Thus, the living spaces had to be moved to the upper floor. This layout anomaly and the requirement for an outdoor covered parking space for cars is addressed by a steel structure at the southern facade. It also provides a connection to the garden via a spiral staircase, creating a generous terrace shaded by tarps, thus providing shade for the rooms in the summer months. Moreover, the structure forms a covered entrance to the house and, last but not least, thanks to the steel mesh, it also serves as a support for climbing plants.
Although the owner’s love for the garden and plants was in the background of a grand dream for a car workshop, the overall solution of the house, its arrangement, and connection to the garden did not overshadow this love. On the contrary, the positioning of the living room on the upper floor visually enlarges the garden due to the view over the rooftops of neighboring lower houses towards the nature reserve.
Inside the house, there are various heights of floors and ceilings. The requirement for a high ceiling in the workshop is balanced by the standard height of the bedrooms, while the elevated living space offsets the height of the office ceiling on the ground floor. The proportions and sightlines from the living room were interesting enough for the house to remain restrained in a white color combined with the exposed concrete of the ceiling. The space is dominated by a large bookshelf, which acts with its colorfulness like a large-format modern canvas.
In the family house in Bašť, it was possible to penetrate the dreams of living of its new owners. All the elements that give the house a unique face are the result of thoughtful solutions, the primary goal of which was to meet all the needs of the users.