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Wola Justowska is an old residential district of Kraków, with opulent palaces built for aristocrats from the 16th century. Among the best known is the Renaissance Decjusz Villa, designed by Italian architects Bartolommeo Berrecci and Giovanni Cini. Today those buildings with architecture harks back to the Palladian style, stand next to catalogue houses and pretentious contemporary quasi-palaces. The only common visual feature in the chaotic development of the district, in which building lots can cost several times as much as in other parts of the City, is the shape of gabled roofs. Several successful projects have been erected in Wola Justowska in recent years, like:
- Dom z gontu - wooden shingle house (architects: nsMoonStudio, A-m 8/04). the Preludium terraced houses (architects: Mobius Architekci, A-m I 1/07) or the development of four semi-detached called Zaułek Onyx, completed late last year. This estate of symmetrical houses occupies a narrow lot between the Królowej Jadwigi and Pylna Streets, fenced and surrounded by a birch-and-pine grove. The development is the result of cooperation between nsMoonStudio and architects from the Buma development company. The latter builds houses using Free-Dom Buma Building Systems technology: the houses are assembled of finished 3D modules manufactured in their entirety in a factor. Since quite recently they have been a Polish export product: Buma erected an affordable social housing project in the south London district of Lambeth. Their quick assembly, which takes only several days, greatly simplified executing the project within the dense urban development (A-m 4/07).
The load-bearing structure of the Krakow houses is also made of prefabricated elements - LECA concrete. The facades are clad in a graphite-coloured Trespa Meteon panel which is resistant to dirt. The same colour was applied to the aluminium door, window and porch skylight frames. The shape was enhanced with bay windows, clad in acrylic plaster, which extend the living room. The viewer’s attention is drawn to meticulously designed details: galvanized steel terraces, glass canopies and external stairs with glass barriers.
The only feature distinguishing the houses is the colour of the entrance door. They are available in two versions. Smaller, 117 m2 in area, also offered on a turn-key basis, or larger, obtained by combining the two halves: the removal of partitions yields another 10 m2 of usable space, so the house totals 244 m2. The interiors have a clear-cut layout: a day zone on the ground floor and a night zone on the first. The traditional shape of buildings in Zaułek Onyx, with the gabled roof characteristic for Wola Justowska, is due to the guidelines of the planning permit but is also the result of using the archetypal shape of a house to reach a level much better than of the average Polish housing architecture.
Architects’ assumptions:
1. The designers’ intention was to create a small urban house of ultimate comfort in line with contemporary European architectural trends.
2. The buildings were constructed using the Buma Free-Dom system of 3D modules manufactured in a factory and fitted at the construction site.
3. The outside wall is made of LECA concrete and thermally insulated. A modern cladding of graphite-coloured HPL (Trespa) panels was used. These panels are highly resistant to weather factors and UV radiation. Their surface is smooth, so the problem of facade soiling is eliminated altogether. The gabled roof is clad in the same material.
4. The buildings are characterised by a good heat retention ratio. The precision of manufacturing, high quality windows and doors guarantee high air tightness of the building. The thermal transmittance of walls (U-value) is 0.20W/m2K.
5. The roof does not have a traditional flat gutter. Instead, there is a gap along which water flows to the insulated flat surface of the roof, from which vertical downpipes flush with the facade drain it. 6. A distinguishing feature of the buildings are large glazed surfaces of the cubical ‘bay windows’ attached to the main body of the house, which extend the area of the living room with the kitchen annexe. They give the people in the living room a feeling of coming into direct contact with nature.
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