Hasta La Ideas

Following our earlier story about a tea house in Prague, here’s another cafe with vaulted ceilings by Hungarian studio Spora Architects, in a two-hundred-year-old former palace in Budapest (+ slideshow).

Spora Architects designed Embassy Espresso as an artisanal coffee shop in the basement of a former nobleman’s city palace, and architect Ádám Hatvani told Dezeen the space is suspected to have been originally used as a stable.

“We know that in this kind of palace from time to time the ground floor was the place for the guard, the servants, horses and carriages,” Hatvani said. “We found some holes in the walls that are probably the places of the barrier beams, usually between the horses and the stable.”

Located in the financial district of downtown Pest, the cafe’s existing doors and window shutters open the space out to the street.

Inside, the architects uncovered the original vaulted brick ceilings and exposed walls built from a mixture of brick and stone.

Pipes run along the upper parts of the walls and extend outwards to form splayed lighting installations, as well as to support hanging pendant lights and simple bulbs.

“There are four different types of lights installed; in the pipes are cables for the lamps so there are no visible cables or installation elements in the cafe,” Hatvani explained.

Wooden benches are positioned around the edges of the cafe. The serving counter is made from wood and is fronted by black steel barstools and chairs.

The floor is covered with natural black slate tiles.

Photography is by Danyi Balázs.

Here’s a project description from Spora Architects:

Espresso Embassy

Take a 80 square meter ground floor flat in the downtown of Budapest, and transform it into an artisanal coffee shop, for one of the world’s best baristas. The building is an urban palace, with beautiful classicist detail, structures of that period, today a residential house.

This was before the artisanal coffee revolution of quality, simplicity, inviting interiors. This is the background in which Espresso Embassy was spawned. After cleaning up the structures, hidden beauties were uncovered. Bohemian spherical brick vaults, stone-brick mixed walls. It turns out the space might have been a stable, this is where the mysterious little gaps in the wall could have come from: holding the walls between two horses, or the timber for the loft on which hay was stored. All this in great condition.

Almost finished. What was needed to add, was a simple black stone floor, furniture made of oak and steel, unique lighting from water pipes. Everything is from what it seems. Material thickness, bricks, stone, oak, raw steel, slate, and the white and black rendering on some parts. Everything else is the work of hospitality.

It is as if we were in a two hundred year old inn, where there is wifi, filtered water for the guests through a tap made of copper and a bowl of concrete, high quality espresso machine, überboiler, milk patterns on cappuccinos, quests with laptops and tablets, breakfast-goers, cultural nomads, urban coffee lovers, intellectuals, businesspeople, bankers, university goers, Hungarians and foreigners: it’s the city.

Architectural design: Dékány Tibor, Hatvani Ádám _sporaarchitects
Year: 2012
Location: Espresso Embassy, Arany János u. Budapest, V., Hungary
Lighting: sporaarchitects, Tarcali Dávid, Jánosi András _lumoconcept
Concrete wash basin : VPI betonmanufaktúra

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by Spora Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

A rectilinear belfry towers above the geometric white volume of this church congregation hall in Hungary by local firm SAGRA Architects (+ slideshow).

The Szolnok Reformed Church Congregation House is the first of two buildings by SAGRA Architects to be completed on the site in Szolnok, central Hungary, following a competition to design a new church complex.

The single-storey building contains a hall capable of accommodating around 30-40 people, an office and kitchen facilities, providing spaces that can be used for either worship or other community activities.

A wall extends out from the eastern side of the building, connecting the structure with the bell tower and creating a secluded terrace in front of the glazed southern facade.

This facade is also slightly recessed to allow part of the gabled roof to function as a canopy across the entrance.

“The basis of our concept was to create an open, clear and transparent space that still represents protection,” explained architect Gábor Sajtos.

Exterior walls are rendered white, while the roof is clad with black slate tiles and windows are framed by stained wood.

“The materials used reflect the spirituality of the building,” said Sajitos. “The white plastered walls and black slate roof suit its austerity and noble simplicity.”

Construction on the neighbouring church has not yet begun, due to problems securing funding. Once complete, it will be positioned on the northern boundary of the site, while remaining spaces between the two buildings will feature flower gardens.

Read on for more information from Sagra Architects:

Congregation House – SAGRA Architects

“… but love builds people up” – 1 Corinthians 8

The design process was preceded by an architectural competition. The SAGRA Architects’ design was rewarded as the winning proposal.

The congregation house is multifunctional: besides operating as congregation hall it houses catechism classes and programmes, fulfils social duties and charity tasks. As the building is also an eco-point, its programmes play part in spreading ecological thinking and teaching sustainable behaviour.

The basis of our concept during the design of Szolnok Reformed Church Congregation House was to create an open, clear and transparent space that still represents protection. Due to its architecture the building serves as a suitable place for worship and community occasions.

The building complex has two parts: the single-storey, cantilevered volume of the congregation house with gabled roof and the Bell tower. The bell tower is an organic part of the complex. The wooden terrace, inserted between the congregation house and the tower extends and opens up the internal community space through a fully openable glass wall. The cantilevered roof creates a transition zone between inside and outside. The south facade is shaded by the strongly cantilevered roof in summer, while it lets in the sharp angled sunbeams in winter.

The composition of the buildings is completed by the lavender garden, the floral garden and the lawn garden with seating and water surface.

The main access to the building is from south, from the street. Here the visitor is led through a pulled back, transition entrance area. The bell tower’s volume leads into the site. The walls, built on the southern and western site boundaries are the integral parts of the complex, symbols of protection, but open up and lead in at the same time. Placing the buildings on the site boundaries is also part of the local building regulations. Through these walls open up, the site becomes private but still open for passing through from all directions.

The congregation hall is extendable towards the wooden terrace. The terrace becomes the full, open-air part of the hall in summer.

The materials used reflect the spirituality of the building. The white plastered walls and black slate roof suit to its austerity and noble simplicity. The doors, windows and the south facade of the building are covered with stained wood, as well as the underside of the cantilevered roof.

As the building is also an eco-point, its programmes play part in spreading ecological thinking and teaching sustainable behaviour, so we considered this aspect during the design process.

The heating and hot water supply of this low energy, economical building is solved by an air to water heat pump. The heating is radiating surface heating (heated floor and ceiling), the cooling is provided by radiating surface cooling from the ceiling. The temperature of the spaces is controlled by thermostatic valves.

The south facade is shaded by the strongly cantilevered roof in summer, while it lets in the sharp angled sunbeams in winter.

Future

The church complex contains three main masses: the church, the congregation house with pastor’s office and the bell tower. The three volumes form an inseparable unity.

Until now the congregation house and the bell tower were built. The congregation is aiming to construct the church too in the future, but the financial background for it is still missing.

Architects: Sagra Architects
Architect in Charge: Sajtos Gábor
Design team: Sajtos Gábor, Grand Gabriella, Páll András, Virág Péter, Németh Regina
Year: 2012
Location: Szolnok, Hungary
Photographs: Szentirmai Tamás

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features a towering white belfry appeared first on Dezeen.

The 365 wooden sledges used to construct this Christmas tree in Budapest by Hungarian designers Hello Wood will be given to a local children’s charity following the festive period (+ movie).

Hello Wood designed the 11-metre-tall structure for a site in front of the Palace of Arts in Budapest and spent one week assembling the wooden frame then fixing the sledges to it.

Two weeks after Christmas the tree will be disassembled and the sledges distributed to local children living in homes operated by SOS Children’s Village, a charity that helps families care for their children and provides accommodation and support for orphaned and abandoned children around the world.

“We wanted to create a temporary installation, which is not only spectacular, but its main elements remain usable so they can be distributed among kids,” explained Andras Huszar of Hello Wood. “For us, this is the point of social awareness: you don’t only show something, but at the same time you give something unique.”

A steel base weighing 4.5 tons anchors the wooden framework, which is made from sections that were part assembled off-site and lifted into place using a crane.

The sledges were then fixed to the frame by a team who used abseiling equipment to suspend themselves from the top of the tree as they worked their way around the conical structure.

“We were thinking a lot about what the secret of an original Christmas decoration is,” David Raday of Hello Wood said. “The sledges were the good choice, because they are symbolising Christmas, but free from the commercial Christmas clichés and the general bad taste that comes with them.”

Visitors are able to step inside the installation and look up at the geometric arrangement of wooden struts, which creates a pattern that resembles the fractal form of a snowflake.

At night the sculpture is illuminated by spotlights positioned around its base that project different colours onto its surface.

Photography is by Daniel Dömölky.

Here’s some more information from Hello Wood:

Hello Wood designers build christmas tree to sledge away

Inhabitants of SOS Children’s Village receive unique present

Designers of Budapest based Hello Wood built a huge christmas tree made of 365 sledges in front of the Palace of Arts at the riverbank of the Danube. It is an exceptional piece of art and architecture marking the Christmas period. After the holiday season all the sledges will be given to the kids living in the homes of SOS Children’s Village thanks to Hungarian Telekom.

Christmas is coming. Lights are flashing in the streets, people are carrying big red and green boxes, bright plastic snowflakes are hanging in the hall of shopping malls. Big companies send out their messengers to take presents to everybody, from the youngest to the oldest, supposing that some chocolate bars, candies or a funny t-shirt can cheer them up.

Hungarian designers of Hello Wood, known for their social awareness and tasteful approach, rethought the idea of Christmas present, and put it in the right context. They built a huge Christmas tree made of 365 sledges, which will be given to children two weeks after Christmas.

“We wanted to create a temporary installation, which is not only spectacular, but its main elements remain usable so they can be distributed among kids. For us, this is the point of social awareness: you don’t only show something, but at the same time you give something unique” – says Andras Huszar, architect of Hello Wood about the installation.

The Christmas tree was built in a week. Visitors can step in and have a look at the construction from the inside. The base is made of steel, it weights 4,5 tons, so the construction is perfectly safe from the heavy winds of winter. The four stems of the installation hold 325 kilograms each. First, the carpenters of Hello Wood made the 10,5 meters tall wooden frame, which was brought to the scene, where it was put together with the help of a crane and the use of welding techniques. Then came the alpinists of Hello Wood, who were working on the installation for four consecutive days, fixing the sledges on the wooden frame while hanging down from the top of the tree. Although the installation is pretty heavy, it looks lightsome: if you step inside, it feels like you are in the middle of a huge snowflake.

Maxim Bakos, one of the founders of Hello Wood originally wanted to create a whole forest made of sledges, then came the idea to create a tree instead of a forest. “We were thinking a lot about what the secret of an original Christmas decoration is. The sledges were the good choice, because they are symbolising Christmas, but free from the commercial Christmas clichés and the general bad taste that comes with them.” – says David Raday, creative leader of Hello Wood, one of the originators of the concept.

Hello Wood is best known for its flagship event, a one week long art camp curated by founder Peter Pozsar every summer. It is not by chance that they co-operated with Palace Of Arts in creating the installation. One of the goals of the Palace of Arts is to work together with young and creative designers and architects. The installation of Hello Wood is more than just a nice piece of young creativity, because thanks to Hungarian Telekom, the sledges will be given to the inhabitants of the SOS Children’s Village.

Concept: David Raday, Andras Huszar, Peter Pozsar, Maxim Bakos
Architectural plan: Andras Huszar, Peter Pozsar, Adam Fogarassy
Design: Benjamin Szilagyi
Statics: Gabor Csefalvay
Realisation: Hello Wood
Lights: Tamas Kiraly, Gabor Agocs (Philips Hungary)
Partner: Gabor Zoboki (ZDA)

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from sledges appeared first on Dezeen.

This engineering research facility at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, by NAPUR Architect has a steel-panelled facade that can fold open to let daylight penetrate the laboratories inside (+ slideshow).

Budapest firm NAPUR Architect designed the steel-framed building to accommodate the university’s power engineering department, which researches and demonstrates electrical systems including generators, motors and transformers.

The two lower levels of the building house laboratories and teaching areas, while an open-air metal cage-like structure on top of the building functions as a research area for solar and wind energy.

The corrugated steel facade panels slide back to reveal windows on three corners of the ground floor and at the entrance, increasing or decreasing the amount of light inside each laboratory.

“The mobile frontal elements can provide full daylight or full darkness in internal spaces at any time of the day,” said architect Marcel Ferencz.

“The panels at the entrance are also used to dim the central space for lectures,” he added.

The first floor contains the power-engineering systems, a control area and service spaces.

The interior is heated via panels on the walls, floor and ceilings, while exposed concrete surfaces and work benches feature throughout.

Other laboratories we’ve featured are an electrical testing facility wrapped with crinkled polished metal, a pair of concrete laboratories elevated on red metal stilts and a cement manufacturing laboratory with a tapered concrete roof.

See more stories about laboratories »
See more architecture and design in Hungary »

Photography is by Tamás Bujnovszky.

Here’s a description from the architects:

DEM Power Engineering Demonstration Centre

The unique 300 m2 power engineering laboratory building realised in Hungary at the campus of the University of Debrecen explores and demonstrates the architectural and building power engineering connections of the climate change.

In the building open to the public the most up-to-date power engineering systems are presented in a manner understandable also by nonprofessionals, including technical solutions from the future of architecture installed freely, outside the walls without any covering.

The mobile frontal walls of the steel cube consisting of 15×15 m regular square elements hide a building embedded in a perfect sheath of power engineering built according to the ‘house in a house’ principle.

The building’s internal spaces – facing the four directions – demonstrate different usage comfort levels adjustable individually for each room by employing a variety of wall, floor, ceiling and air heating.

The mobile steel frontal providing for shading can be moved as desired by the time of day.

The mobile frontal elements can provide full daylight or full darkness in internal spaces at any time of the day. The solar power systems installed on the roof and the geothermal probes ensure that the building’s power consumption is nearly zero.

Architects: Marcel Dla Ferencz and Gyorgy Detary.

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by NAPUR Architect appeared first on Dezeen.

Hungarian studio Budapesti Műhely has restored the interior of one of Budapest’s oldest bathhouses by replacing the vaulted walls of the warm water hall and shower room, leaving the bubble-shaped backs exposed (+ slideshow).

The Rácz Thermal Bath was first constructed in the sixteenth century and extended 300 years later, when architect Miklós Ybl added the newer romantic-style bath halls and connecting shower corridor.

Parts of the building were destroyed in World War II and the architects decided not to rebuild the brick walls behind the new vaults, instead leaving them exposed so that visitors can see the curved structures lining the hallway.

“As a result of our method, the richly formed interiors have been renovated by the architectural tools of their times, but the halls have received frivolous shapes never seen before,” explained architect Tamás Dévény.

Other new walls have been created with transparent glass to maximise views through the building.

The architects noticed that round skylights are a motif that unites the different periodical styles of the rooms, so added more to the renovated spaces.

“Through these holes both the sunlight and the artificial light can reach the building’s lower levels and the different floors can cause strange light effects to the other floors above or under each other,” said Dévény.

Despite the contemporary additions, Dévény says they still used traditional building techniques. “There is no electrical light, no heating system or mechanical ventilation in the Turkish bath,” he said. “Also the water pressure in the Ybl Bathing Halls is at the same level as it was possible to make in 1865.”

Other baths we’ve featured include a Jewish bathhouse in Mexico and thermal baths in Switzerland.

Photography is by Tamas Bujnovszky.

Here’s some more information from writer Brigitta Bugya:

Renovation of the Rácz Thermal Bath
Location: Budapest, Hungary

Routed back to the 16th century, to the Ottoman times, when the central and southern territories of the medieval Hungarian Kingdom was ruled by the Turkish Empire for 150 years, the Rácz Thermal Bath is one of the oldest bathing building in Budapest. Heading towards completion, its renovation shows the original spatial appearance precisely how the different historical periods layered above each other and formed a complex arrangement through centuries. Led by the architectural firm Budapesti Műhely, the reconstruction paid attention not just to the building’s overall image, but also to the original technical inventions of the Bath.

Historical background

Situated at the foot of Gellért Hill, the Bath was founded probably during the ruling time of Sokollu Mustafa Pasha around 1560. The Turkish bath, the oldest part of the building, stayed fortunately unharmed when the long Turkish siege was over after the Battle of Buda (1686). As a result, the building’s ownership went for a while to the Austrian Kaiserlich Chamber and then in the 1860s to the Heinrich family. The wealthy family commissioned Miklós Ybl, a renowned architect of his time, to renovate (1864-65) and to extend the building with several new bathing parts (1869-70) in his romantic style. But before any extension could be made, the Heinrich family had to purchase the necessary ground floor areas in small plots one by one, since this part of Buda was a densely populated area at that time. This caused certain suddenness in the extension method and a highly complex spatial structure. Thus, the recent renovation had to solve not only the reconstruction of different styles, but also to harmonically unify the overlapping historical building parts with the new facilities.

The renovation

The building has been severely damaged during the World War II bombings and its condition became even worse due to the senselessly ordered demolitions of the 1960’s and to the decades of delay in the renovation process. Started finally in 2006, the work focused on the meticulous reconstruction of the original historical spaces and also of the Turkish era’s, the Baroque periods’ and the 19th century civic world’s bathing experience. Therefore, the architects renovated not only the original use of materials and the ornamental motifs with an extra care, but also the showering, lighting and heating techniques, the water’s pressure in accordance with the original customs of the different bathing halls. Thus the different historical times will become really sensible for the guests after the upcoming opening.

Contemporary architectural tools

White vaults in the newly built circulation spaces – Designed by Ybl, the Moresque Shower-hall and the connecting Warm Water Cupola-hall were completely destroyed by the above mentioned demolitions of the 1960s. Rebuilding these connecting parts, the architects’ intention was to maintain an unharmed historical experience in the building, meanwhile clearly expressing that these walls are not the original ones. Therefore, they decided upon building a 1:1 scale model according to the original plans and using a thin concrete shell structure (with a15 centimetres width) instead of the old brick walls with the variable thickness and straightened external surfaces as they were made in the 19th century’s building practice. Thus, the end result shows the interiors of the spaces in the same way as they used to look; meanwhile the exteriors got such vaulted shapes that have not existed before.

Transparency – The bath’s restored parts are joined by glass facades, corridors and internal spaces with glass walls. With this solution the several centuries old spaces received such an architectural frame that reveal as much as possible from the listed building’s historical values. Giving a harmonic overall appearance to the building the architects used a recurring motif throughout the whole building to connect the different historical periods’ styles in the complex spatial structure: a rounded skylight. Acting like a kind of reinterpretation of the Turkish bath’s opeion, the rounded, glassed skylights are organised in a regular raster and occur in some parts of the new building parts’ floor-space.

Project: Rácz Thermal Bath
Location: Hungary, 1013 Budapest, Hadnagy Street 8-10.

Leading architects: Tamás Dévényi, Csaba Valkai, Anikó Varga, Péter Kis
General design: Tamás Dévényi – Budapesti Műhely

Leading architects: Tamás Dévényi, Csaba Valkai, Anikó Varga, Péter Kis

Associate architects: Zoltán Bun, Gábor Balázsa, Orsolya Máté, Eszter Mihály, Donát Szakmári, Tamás Ükös, Viktor Vadász
Structural Engineering: András Szabó, Tamás Tamássy
Mechanical Engineering: Ervin Barta
Electrical Engineering: Ferenc Haasz, Gábor Somogyi
Landscape: Adrienne Szalkai
Public Utilities: Bálint Simon
Archaeologist: Adrienn Papp
Historical research: Ferenc Bor, György Bartos

Year designed: 2007

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by Budapesti Műhely appeared first on Dezeen.