© Anna Horčinová

• Architects: Woven
• Location: 921 01 Piešťany, Slovakia
• Architect In Charge: Anna Cséfalvay, Marianna Maczová, Danica Pišteková, Veronika Trnovská
• Area: 24.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Anna Horčinová, Vera Kiseľová, Lorcan Koethe

• Tutors :  Ransu Helenius (FIN), Tobias Foged Permin (DK)
• Critics And Guests : Sebastian Sowa (DE), Lorcán Koethe (DE), Benjamin Brádňanský (SK), Vito Halada (SK), Peter Lényi (SK)
• Participants : Gabi Mészáros, Nina Valickova, Karol Gwiazdowski, Vera Kiseľová, Silvia Gálová, Rebeka Zacková, Kseniya Hetman, Martina Mikócziová
• The Project Was Supported By: Slovak Arts Council, spa town Piešťany, Tatra banka foundation, Trnava self-governing region

• Partners : House of Art Piešťany, club Žiwell, Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (Engineering Room, Department of Architecture)

© Anna Horčinová

WORKSHOP [1:1] is being organized by W​O|V|​EN ​annually since 2013 as a form of a summer school. Last summer’s edition​ (18. – 29. July 2016) took place at a special location, on an island called Lido, splitting and regulating the river Váh in a popular spa town Piešťany in Slovakia. For the first time, it was organized​​ in collaboration with a local NGO Centrum architektúry. The main goal of the WORKSHOP [1:1] is to design and build wooden structures in a one-to-one scale in ten intense days and to broaden the practical skills and experience of architecture and design students.

© Vera Kiseľová

The participants do not only gain experience in the field and learn a new set of skills but also their craft work remains on the site and becomes a vital part of the place. Last summer, ​eight international participants from different architecture schools were led by two tutors, architects experienced in the field of timber construction – Ransu Helenius from Finland and Tobias Foged Permin from Denmark.

© Anna Horčinová

The design process was supported by a landscape architect Sebastian Sowa from Germany, architect Lorcan Koethe coming from Switzerland and local architects Benjamin Brádňanský, Vito Halada (n/a architects) and Peter Lényi. Neither the topic nor the site were specified beforehand but emerged on spot from the initial design process that took about four days, while the rest was dedicated to building.

Diagram

The students came up with an idea of an object wedged into a forest near the tip of Lido island. Inspired by the view to the sky shining through the wildly growing trees and the ivy carpet, which make this space rather unused, they created an iconic space immediately recognized and attracting people. Its name, UWO (unidentified wooden object), is a playful reference to its “unidentified” function without any recognizable structural sign how to use it and also to its alien appearance intentionally out of the context of local nature, without a direct relationship to the bent trees. People curious to climb in and experience the atmosphere tend to use it to relax, chat and drink, while the children love to just madly run around. On the opening day it became a special stage for a multimedia-dance performance. 

© Anna Horčinová

The supporting structure is made of layered timber profiles of douglas fir, bent to the required shape by using a jig. Screwed and pegged through they hold the curve. These beams were then assembled into eight wedges and put together straight on site. The resulting object is of a diameter of 5,5 meters and weights about 600 kg. 

© Vera Kiseľová

Diagram

© Vera Kiseľová

Throughout the years WORKSHOP [1:1] became a movable event of sorts, travelling from town to town, bringing life to forgotten places with potential or faded past. Next year’s edition, the fifth WORKSHOP [1:1] is going to bring its experience and experiments to a beautiful scruffy castle park of a small town Stupava, Slovakia.

© Anna Horčinová

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© mwphotoinc

• Architects: UrbanCarve
• Location: Yilan,Taiwan
• Area: 284.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: mwphotoinc

© mwphotoinc

The client is an elderly couple, retired from Taipei, wants to begin their new life at their country hometown, Yilan. They, who grew up at Jhuangwei, Yilan, has great nostalgia for the sloping black terracotta roof, red brick walls, and the scenic view of Gueishan Island’s. Their experience, the small road wandering through the rice field and the passage across the watering ditch, has been discussed constantly and become the core of this project’s concept, related to home.

© mwphotoinc

Design Strategy

– Glazed gable void

By shifting two solid masses backwards and forwards, a void is generated and set as the core of a “home”. It functions as household alter of family’s ancestor. And we want to redefind this space’s relations in Taiwan’s family.

-The Rooftop overlooking Gueishan Island

Through the ritual of drinking teas and appreciating the sun rising, we want the client to live again in the nature. Architecturally, we create several roof terraces to provide various sceneries, such as the rice field, the mountain in the distance, and the sun rising from the sea horizon.

© mwphotoinc

– The portrait of home

In architectural design, we imagined the house as an abstract swallows’ nest, so the characteristic feature can be identified in the vast rural field, from far away. And more to the function of these two shifting solid masses, which are planned for client’s two sons to inhabit, it is generated a flowing space that is more flexible and can be multi-functioned.

Plan

– Integrated landscape and spatial experience 

There are the wandering small country roads, the irrigating ditches amidst the paddy rice field, and the rolling hills in the distant, which we transform into a spatial experience: the curvilinear staircase in the living room, suspended platform along the axis on which one can sit on or lie down, the stairs changing with the gables, and the attic space shaped by the folding walls. All these elements integrate together and generate another spatial experience. 

© mwphotoinc

– The use of light-well motivating the flow of the space

Designed strategically, we shifting the viewpoint to make the space more interesting and have the quality of flowing. Therefore, the light-well on the top of the balcony, the skylight atop the attic, and the clerestory of the household alter all increase the fowling quality. 

© mwphotoinc

When the night comes quietly, the flowing void of the household alter becomes the safe harbor for the family to come home to. 

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