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Single-family houses offered by domestic homebuilders are in their predominating majority marked by a low architectural level and low finishing standard. Due to the fear of the "cube", once associated with the social realism epoch and still dominating in the society, the newly constructed housing estates are filled with imitations of traditional Polish manor houses or copies of American buildings yet isolated from their historical context. The contemporary aesthetic and technological trends find it difficult to break through the barriers of habits and economic limitations. Meanwhile the Onyx Lane, which was constructed in Krakow in 2009, constitutes an interesting exception to the above rule.
The Onyx Lane is a small-scale complex of semi-detached houses, located in the Kraków's historical village district of Wola Justowska. Four reproducible buildings occupy a small land plot, surrounded with a birch grove, in the close vicinity of the Las Wolski forest. The design is an outcome of cooperation between architects from the Design and Development Office of Buma Building Systems and nsMoonStudio.
The unique architecture of the buildings was inspired by the archetypical form of a single-family house, yet the technologies and materials applied, as well as carefully elaborated details determine its very modern character. The traditional, simple body of the building, covered by a gable roof, was enriched by means of a side oriel that houses a dining room, large glazed areas in the day part, and corner windows in sleeping rooms. The whole building is clad with uniform, graphite colour panels. Roof drainage system hidden under the cladding layer eliminated the necessity of installing external gutters and downpipes, which might impair the drawing of the elevation. Steel chimneys and railings as well as glazed balustrades and canopies over entrances additionally emphasize the contemporary character of design solutions.
Just like other catalogue homes offered by the Buma Group, the Onyx buildings have been made of prefabricated volumetric modules, which has considerably increased the pace of the project implementation. The load bearing walls are made of lightweight clay aggregate concrete with thermal insulation, while the external cladding system, on both the walls and roofs, is made of HPL panels. The visual identification of individual houses has been confined to the diversified colours of entrance doors.
The internal room layout is developed in accordance with contemporary standards for small single-family houses: a high ground floor includes a spacious living room with a kitchenette, preceded by a vestibule with a wardrobe and a toilet. On the first floor there are two sleeping rooms and a common bathroom, while garage and scullery are located in the underground part. It is possible to double the floor space amounting to just under 120 sq.m. (including the garage) by combining twin units into a single house.
That housing proposal has been prepared by Buma for a specific circle of customers, namely those who are able to appreciate the unique character of modern architecture and who prefer quality of spatial and material solutions to the quantity measured in terms of square meters. Although in the era of crisis on the real property market that target group may prove to be exceptionally narrow, the completion of the project burdened with the so-defined risk is still a pleasing feeling.
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