Program: Administrative building reconstruction

Stage: Invited competition 1st. place - realisation

Stage: Project

Location: Trenčín

Usable area: 2500 m2

Year: 2021

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek + Hubinský Ateliér

Text:

The revitalisation of modernist public buildings in historic centres often raises many questions. Buildings are often set off the street line, without the context of facades to surrounding historic buildings or incongruous in height. Nevertheless, they have many qualities that can be appreciated even today. The use of new static, modular schemes has achieved variability and flexibility of internal spaces, opening up the potential for their revitalisation into modern buildings.

The design takes advantage of the variability of the structure and improves it by fitting vertical cores in the darkest, outermost parts of the building and by repositioning the elevator, creating a more compact circulation core. We are also revitalizing and utilizing all paved areas and roof surfaces and turning them into terraces, plazas or residence atriums to create relaxing and gathering outdoor spaces for visitors and tenants of the building to the maximum extent possible. At the same time, the proposed facades prepare the building for its new purpose but leave room for a later change of layout to any other function. We see the retention of the original skeleton as an excellent decision in terms of sustainability and we want to build on it by creating facades that will support it even more.

Facade reflects its surroundings, like a mirror, and reinterpreted to simulate the behaviour of the façades of the surrounding houses. The fuller façade of the house is a reference to the historic townhouses in the neighborhood, characterized by their visual appearance of brick houses with window openings. The house itself uses the variability of the original skeleton, but the skeleton itself becomes a purely load-bearing element that is implemented in the new visual of the building, so as not to undermine the character of the townhouse (palace).

Program: Public

Stage: Competition - 1st.place - Ex-aequo

Location: Praha

Year: 2023

Team: Peter Kuklica, Erik Hornáček, Martin Smerek, Radovan Szabó

Text:

We propose a solid town house with a rich interior world created by an atrium. The large exterior spaces of the loggia offer the inhabitants both intimacy and a generous exterior living space. The construction grid is projected into the whole house.

Program: Public

Stage: Competition - 1st.place, Study

Location: Trnava

Year: 2023

Team: Peter Kuklica, Erik Hornáček, Martin Smerek, Radovan Szabó

Text:

Genius Loci

The design works with the most valuable thing the site has to offer, and that is the character of the former depot. All new functions or buildings are adapted to the linearity of the original track, the halls and the original elements of the traction line or lighting poles, which create a unique Genius loci. The buildings of the repair halls become the focal point of the site and a significant silhouette in the landscape. All new spaces are added to them additively to create one functionally interconnected building preserving the horizontal scale of the existing halls.

Hall / Administration / Void / Extension / Tower

The proposal consists in adapting the repair halls into 'covered squares' and the associated, single-story building into a kind of 'boulevard' (void). The design of a longitudinal road to this building - outside the area of the halls themselves - makes full use of the area potential of the hall spaces for the new function. At the same time, a new tract of a variable new building is added to the void space, which is an extended addition to the original facilities. The newly added tract is an insulated building that contains all the necessary facilities, lettable areas, restaurant or reception. This solution makes it possible to simplify the reconstruction of the original halls and the original single-storey adjoining facilities into a purely tavebotechnical solution without the need for complicated thermal engineering solutions. The addition of the new wing does not create the need to maintain the administration building and thus does not duplicate sub-functions such as reception or hygiene.

At the same time, a greater degree of operational coherence and multifunctionality of the whole building was achieved. The existing connection between the halls is proposed as a seasonally closed and heated space. In order to provide the necessary capacity, we are extending this volume and architecturally emphasizing the position of the main entrance. The tower building is topped with unnecessary/removed glass concrete blocks and serves as a lookout to the future park.

Program: Apartment house

Stage: Study

Location: Bratislava

Usable area: 1900 m2

Year: 2024

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek

Collaboration: Erik Hornáček, Radovan Szabó, Samuel Morvačík

Text:

wip

Program: Apartment house

Stage: Planning permission

Location: Bratislava

Usable area: 6500 m2

Year: 2021

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek

Collaboration: Michal Bajan, Katarína Siváková

Text:

The building complements existing urbanism and follows the proportions of the surrounding buildings. At the same time, it creates a new park behind the building and a vibrant parterre. The façade, in addition to shading, offers users plenty of privacy on the living balconies.

Program: Factory and office building

Stage: Study

Location: Slovakia

Usable area: 1800m2

Year: 2021

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Erik Hornáček

Text:

We combine administration and production in one fluid space. We want to design a free space without distinction, where the CEO of the company can meet the production worker without prejudice, without differences. We are creating a technical but human space. We want to change the narrative of production halls, which are considered only functional envelopes without spatial quality.

The new tract of halls being completed works with luminous skylights and walls thus removing the constant artificial lighting and articulating the otherwise pragmatic shape of the hall. New office building is located parallel with the road and halls. Space between halls and office building provides democratic artificial garden for all .

Program: Public

Stage: Competition - 1st.place

Location: Ústí nad Orlicí

Year: 2024

Team: Erik Hornáček, Radovan Szabó, Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Leonard Šlosár

Text:

Concept was based on respecting the architectural, spatial and interior qualities of the cultural house. The approach to the reconstruction tried to be as sensitive as possible, respecting the basic mass of the building and its proportions without adding new volumes. The most fundamental change is the removal of the staircase connected to the main hall of the building, whose assanination opens up new possibilities for the use of the external space in relation to the current state.

The outdoor space also takes on a new dimension in the corner position of the north-western part, where, following a significant change in the layout of ground floor, a square has been created in response to the building's vibrant parterre. The new operating scheme resolves the conflict between performers and visitors that was essential for the proper functioning of the community centre.

Program: Apartment house

Stage: Built

Location: Bratislava

Usable area: 820 m2

Year: 2024

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek

Collaboration: Michal Bajan, Katarína Siváková

Photograph: Alexandra Timpau (alex shoots buildings)

Text:

The concept of a small apartment building presents our view of how to create quality urban living. Respect for the scale of urbanism, communication of the building with its surroundings, cultivated greenery, bright and rational layout with orientation to two world sides and common living spaces are the basic elements of the design.

Urbanistically, the building complements the compositionally unfinished Podunajská Street and connects to the emerging street line. Visually, it is composed of two masses of "chimney and box". We believe that the size of the building, the garden connected to the gazebo and the composition of the flats will encourage the creation of a community form of housing.

Program: Public

Stage: Built

Location: Bratislava

Area: 1800 m2

Year: 2018

Author: Štefan Ďurkovič (author of the building)

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Ján Kohút

Collaboration: Matej Otrísal, Juraj Hubinský

Photograph: Matej Hakár

Text:

Modernist building in the heart of the old town, has over the years become a landmark and a centre of alternative culture. The preservation of its character is the result of a long search for the right essence of reconstruction.

The chosen "facelift" of the building preserves it in its architectural essence as designed by the architect Štefan Ďurkovič. However, new proposed elements, aesthetically and functionally adapt it to the present day.

Program: Apartment house

Stage: Study

Location: Bratislava

Usable area: 900 m2

Year: 2024

Team: Peter Kuklica, Erik Hornáček, Martin Smerek

Collaboration: Ilja Skoček

Text:

Small apartment house provides various types of exterior spaces adjacent to flats. Gardens, terraces, balconies and winter gardens. Diversity of flats is hidden behind rigid concrete facade which provides acoustic filter.

Program: Public

Stage: Competition - 2nd.place

Location: Stupava

Year: 2024

Team: Peter Kuklica, Erik Hornáček, Martin Smerek, Radovan Szabó

Text:

We place the newly proposed features as one compact volume around the original building, which is implemented into the mass while remaining its heart. We preserve what is most essential of the original building, namely its material value and interior. The original building remains functionally independent, open to the public. The new parts of the building contain, floor by floor, the individual functional units of the seniors' facility, the social and health care facility and the apartments.

The building thus forms one compact mass that communicates on all sides with its surroundings and has the ambition to activate and connect the surrounding land and its functions into a single complex.

On the roof there are paraphrasedfamily houses for rent, which provide the comfort of an apartment and the advantages of a family house.

Program: Public

Stage: Competition - 2nd.place

Location: Valašské Meziříčí

Year: 2024

Team: Peter Kuklica, Erik Hornáček, Martin Smerek, Radovan Szabó

Text:

The design of the extension of the new gymnasium of the Křížná Primary School respects the original pavilion structure of the school and its surrounding environment. In this sense, the extension is placed in a north-eastern position, on top of the current athletic field. It is connected to the school building by a communication corridor - a corridor, which is not alien to the current pavilion layout of the primary school in its form.The mass of the gym is urbanistically connected to the building line of the school canteen. This approach positions it in relation to the articulated front façade of the school, whereby by pushing it into the background it does not seek to draw excessive attention to itself, but instead falls naturally into the surrounding fabric of the school grounds despite its contrastingly larger bulk and height. The location, which urbanistically tries to match the longitudinal profile of Křížná Street, also benefits the campus itself. In the newly proposed situation, albeit on a smaller area, it is no longer exposed to Křížná Street, but is enclosed in a more coherent whole.

Program: Public

Stage: Study

Location: Bratislava

Year: 2023

Team: Peter Kuklica, Erik Hornáček, Martin Smerek, Radovan Szabó

Text:

The sporthotel near the football pitch supports the character of its surroundings by its linearity. The ground floor of the building is made up of public functions for children with families, which are absent in the area. On the roof there is a semi-private space for wellness, which is designed as a park.

Program: Residential

Stage: IZ

Location: Bratislava

Usable area: 300 m2

Year: 2023

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Erik Hornáček, Radovan Szabó

Text:

A small townhouse in a city gap takes its basic geometry from the surrounding urbanism. The mass is accepting all the regulations of the territory. Functionally, the building is made up of three flats, on individual floors. The acceptance of window openings in the classical "wall-window" style has led to the creation of a kind of exterior room, a loggia, which can become an extension of the interior in the warmer months. At the same time, the garden behind the house mediates a space for the creation of a community of inhabitants.

Program: Public

Stage: Competition

Location: Bratislava

Year: 2023

Team: Peter Kuklica, Erik Hornáček, Martin Smerek

Text:

Concept of the building is based on the characteristic rectangular composition of the buildings on the site parallel to Námestie Slobody Street. With its longer facade, the building creates an ephemeral background to the main building of the government office. At the same time, with its division into three shifted masses, it respects the existing shape of the plot and roads and simulates the scale of the surrounding houses.

The lapidary concept of the architecture can be read from the interior to the exterior through the pragmatic use of the modular system both on the facade and in the structure itself. It is flexibility and modularity that creates a sustainable object, which is an efficient yet pleasant basis for work. The connection with the park and the entire campus is one of the main attributes of the building. Through the glass facade, it communicates to the outside and at the same time provides a certain transparency and openness towards the inside.

Program: Public

Stage: Competition - 1st.place

Location: Turčianske Teplice

Year: 2023

Team: Peter Kuklica, Erik Hornáček, Martin Smerek, Radovan Szabó

Text:

Reducing of interventions, reuse of materials and the search for existing qualities, as the main principles of sustainability, are the defining elements of the concept. We preserve the main building as much as possible and supplement it with new functional elements that enable adaptation to a new function and expand its usability. The concept could be divided into three basic functional elements, a drawer, a roof garden and an aviary.

Program: Residential

Stage: IZ

Location: Bratislava

Usable area: 7500 m2

Year: 2022

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Erik Hornáček

Text:

The basic element of the design is to complete its surroundings by taking over the already given characteristics of the surrounding buildings. The buildings complement the urban block, in height, plan and character. The design is the result of the examination and evaluation of individual input data, whether from the surroundings or from the client.

The design is composed of two masses connected by a common glazed core with a park in the middle. The buildings themselves are complemented in height and position by the characteristic street lines of Mýtna and Šancová Streets. The buildings follow the lines of the original buildings on the neighbouring plots and complete the city block. The apartment house towards Šancová Street has 8 storeys and the apartment house towards Mýtna Street has 7 storeys. They are connected by a common vertical communication of glazed footbridges with a staircase and lifts installed at the tip of the urban block. On the ground floor of the buildings there areentrances with a common foyer leading to a green inner block as a residential oasis for the residents. At the same time, the entire ground floor is connected to the street by glazed walls of the shops.

On the second to sixth floors there is a typical floor with a different composition of apartments. The seventh floor recedes significantly in the direction of Mýtna Street and a continuous terrace is created, to which two roof apartments are attached.

The eighth floor in the direction of Šancova Street also recedes significantly and consists of one four-bedroom penthouse and one two-bedroom studio apartment. The architecture of the buildings themselves is a fusion of typical architectural elements for the location and contemporary requirements for the concept of housing and variability of spaces. The façades of the buildings facing Mýtna and Šancová Streets refer to the functionalist longitudinal windows by their characteristic growth, which lightens the façade and at the same time achieves the solidity and massing of the building characteristic of the surrounding buildings with its full parts.

All apartments, except those facing the courtyard, have recessed loggias within the façade to achieve maximum intimacy and soundproofing.

Program: Administrative building with showroom

Stage: Project

Location: Bratislava

Usable area: 1200 m2

Year: 2021

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Erik Hornáček, Juraj Hubinský

Text:

The new headquarters of Vi-Group is inspired by the character of the old Vajnor area. The concept is based on the finishing of the street lines and the creation of modular parallel houses complementing the urbanism. The plan width is based on the surrounding civic and residential buildings. The buildings are composed of a multifunctional house facing Roľnícka Street, which completes the gap and a super-long structure, a paraphrase on the classic vajnor house with a passage, which is a combination of offices, restaurant and housing.

Program: Factory and office building

Stage: Study

Location: Slovakia

Usable area: 1800m2

Year: 2021

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Erik Hornáček

Text:

We combine administration and production in one fluid space. We want to design a free space without distinction, where the CEO of the company can meet the production worker without prejudice, without differences. We are creating a technical but human space. We want to change the narrative of production halls, which are considered only functional envelopes without spatial quality.

The new tract of halls being completed works with luminous skylights and walls thus removing the constant artificial lighting and articulating the otherwise pragmatic shape of the hall. New office building is located parallel with the road and halls. Space between halls and office building provides democratic artificial garden for all .

Program: Public - landscape

Stage: Competition - Honourable mention

Location: Dunajská Streda

Year: 2022

Team: Peter Kuklica, Erik Hornáček, Martin Smerek, Juraj Hubinský

Text:

The design accepts the original car track from the last century . It cultivates the environment by planting a varied carpet of trees and natural undergrowth, while creating a central space of open mown residency meadow with a link to the café. The character of the park is designed to be natural with an emphasis on low maintenance and rich biodiversity. The north-western corner of the site is enhanced by a water feature with opportunities for viewing the surrounding countryside. A looped mud path winds around the perimeter of the park, extending into the foothills.

Progran: Public

Stage: Invited competition - 3rd. place

Location:Bratislava

Floor area:1200m2

Year: 2022 Team: Peter Kuklica, Erik Hornáček, Martin Smerek

Text:

The concept for the redevelopment of the existing building is based on the use of its two basic qualities, the skeleton system and the atrium. It is the skeleton system with a 6.3x6.3 module that allowed us to rationalize the layout so that it could be used and changed in time as variably as possible, and the atrium provided sufficient light comfort as well as the intimacy of its own green courtyard. It is the variability of the building that is the supporting element of the entire design and is reflected in the layout and the visual itself.

Program: Public

Stage: Competition - Honourable mention

Location: Bratislava

Year: 2021 Team: Peter Kuklica, Erik Hornáček, Martin Smerek, Juraj Hubinský, Katarína Siváková

Text:

Backstage

The building of the Academy of Performing Arts is conceived in the design as a backstage behind the curtain. The building itself is a backstage, a space used for creation and education; it is a pragmatic shell offering a basis for creation. This pragmatic level reflects the concept of ordering the interior spaces. These make use of the floor plan and communications with the existing building in order to maximise the usable space of the building. The structural shell of the building, with the use of prestressed ceiling panels, frees up the entire layout and leaves the possibility of variable manipulation of the layout. The functional narrative of the backstage as the heart of the building and its variability is completed by the façade in a strictly modular sequence, which can offer plenty of light and shade depending on the scene.

Curtain

The fabric curtain, as a reference to theatrical creation, envelops the house and creates a significant character for the building and the whole campus, which is currently indistinguishable in the surrounding urban fabric. At the same time, the use of exterior shading fabric does not overheat the spaces and maintains sufficient luminosity and intimacy.The complete shading is additionally regulated by interior shading.

Theatre

The theatre becomes the street and the audience can be everyone. By exploiting the nature of the brief, three theatres were formed, each with a different character. The main one is the theatre as a multifunctional hall on the ground floor, in connection with the street, which is transparent and offers both an intimate and public presentation of its function towards the public. The theatre also becomes a courtyard recessed below ground level, which invites unusual use by students and the organisation of events. The roof terrace is an open-air theatre, a multifunctional space for all users of the house . During the day a space for a quiet lunch, in the evening a space for a theatre or film performance.

Program: Public

Stage: Competition - 2nd.place

Location: Bratislava

Year: 2020

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Juraj Hubinský, Katarína Siváková, Brigita Teplanová

Text:

We have divided the thinking itself into two strands. The first is the heritage approach, cleaning up the spaces, completing the original design by the architect Belluš and restoring the representativeness of the main spaces. The second is to create quality working and meeting spaces so that the building creates a sense of openness, variability and transparency in the 21st century office for visitors and staff.

Program: Private

Stage: Study

Location: Podbranč

Area: 120 m2

Year: 2021

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek

Friends approached us with a beautiful assignment to renovate an original village house. We removed the last extension built by the original owners, which divided the house into two separate houses.

By adding a "winter garden" we functionally connected the house indoors while opening up the grounds to the view of mature trees and the stone barn.

As an overall unification, we fitted the roof as a crown, flowing seamlessly into the porch and pergola.

Program: Public

Stage: Competition - 1st. place

Location: Valaská

Area: 5900 m2

Year: 2020

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Juraj Hubinský, Katarína Siváková

Text:

The basic motive of the design was to make the square area accessible and debarrier and to create an attractive social and cultural centre of the village. The design concept is based on making the parterre on opposite sides of the square accessible by creating pedestrian links in the existing green belt. An important point was the creation of an environment attractive for staying in the space. This is achieved by activating individual micro-spaces in the designed area.

Program: Public

Stage: Project

Location: Santovka

Area: 1800 m2

Year: 2021

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Michal Bajan, Katarína Siváková

Text:

From the original brief to add a few rooms to the original hotel, we came up with a solution for a complex wellness area with a swimming pool.

The concept of archetypal masses with a pitched roof winds its way in different shapes and sizes along the central road that connects the whole area.

Program: Public

Stage: Competition - 2nd.place

Location: Trnava

Area: 115 000 m2

Year: 2020

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Juraj Hubinský, Katarína Siváková

Text:

The concept of revitalizing public spaces is based on the search for an authentic identity embedded in the urbanism of a modernist housing estate. The purpose of the revitalisation is to promote the potential of "living in the green" by inserting green groves, improving the legibility of the area through a central promenade and expanding leisure opportunities for all groups of inhabitants in the inner and outer blocks. The proposal supports the overall 'image' of the estate and its sustainable yet conceptual development in the future. The housing estate is a kind of urban laboratory in which the life of the community of people who are connected to it takes place.

Program: Public

Stage: Realisation

Location: Trenčianske Teplice

Area: 230m2

Year: 2020

Team: Juraj Hubinský, Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek

Photograph: Lousy Auber

Text:

The town house in Trenčianske Teplice is predestined for a social function.

Its shorter facade closes the Kúpeľná Street and then opens from the side to the park. The building originally from the 1920s served as a butcher's shop, a shop and eventually as a gambling hall. With the various changes of owners over time, there has been a complete deterioration of the building, both interior and exterior.

Clients approached us with the idea of turning the house into a liquor factory, cafe and small shop. From the beginning, we thought about the need to clean the building from the deposits of different eras and bring back its genius loci. Based on historical photographs, we adapted the window openings to their original positions. We abstracted the original wooden façade of the building towards the street in the form of sculptural new woodwork, but also in the colour of the plaster. We did not try to restore the building in a monumental way but to retell the historical essence in subtle references to the present day.

The great asset of the whole space is the simple terrace paved with basalt cubes facing the city park. This is connected to the café on the eastern façade through window openings with doors. It extends under the massive linden trees, which create a pleasant shade in summer. Due to the terrace's position in relation to the city promenade, it is a relaxing place during walks and contributes to the revitalisation of movement in the city.

It is at this point that on warm days it is best to see the combined result of efforts not only to revitalise the building, but to enliven the whole surrounding area.

Program: Public

Stage: Competition - 1st. place

Location: Bratislava

Area: 1200 m2

Year: 2020

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Martynas Kilius

Text:

A community centre , which respects the landscape and ecology. A centre that opens up to the landscape and works in harmony with it. A centre that is contemporary in its design and operation.

The functions of the new building complement each other with the original cable car station. The operation inside and outside the building takes place in an endless circle, as in the forest. The exterior is closely linked to the interior, whether at ground level or at terrace level. The lower cable car station is in close proximity to the roof terrace and the refreshment area on it. It is a vantage point that opens out towards Kamzik and the cable car and invites you to come along for the ride. It also opens out towards the meadow, the playground and the terrace by the restaurant at ground level. From the roof terrace it is possible to descend to ground level by stairs or wheelchair lift and walk smoothly along the footpath over the footbridge over the stream to the meadow.

Program: Public

Stage: Study

Location: Trnava

Year: 2019

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek

Text:

In the design of sustainability, we have addressed the preservation of the original skeleton as much as possible and its least possible load.We decided to use a suspended aluminum facade, which consists of solid panels and glass surfaces. This ensures minimal interference with the statics of the building, thus eliminating the excessive use of additional material. An important element of the design in terms of ecology and sustainability is the energy consumption of the building itself. For this reason, we place fixed shading elements on the façade that protect the interior from overheating in summer and insulate in winter. Another added value is the conversion of loggias into winter gardens, which filter the air and form an additional barrier to the sun during the summer period. In these we also place air-conditioning units hidden in the niche behind the hoist. We are designing all the roofs as green, which also cools the fifth facade of the building.

Program: Private

Stage: Study

Area:400m2

Year: 2018

Team: Peter Kuklica, Martin Smerek, Juraj Hubinský, Ján Kohút

Text:

The cottages in Modra on a very narrow sloping plot were initially conceived for a view and a connection with the outdoors.

We designed a row of buildings behind each other to maximize the views and create living spaces in between.

The "SUPERGOLA" connection brings an element of interspace to the concept, which is the link between the exterior and interior of the cottages.

The classical tectonics of the pitched roofs respects the character of the Modran chalets.

Program: Houses

Stage: Competition - 2nd. place

Location: Bratislava

Area: 1000m2

Year: 2017

Team: Peter Kuklica, Juraj Hubinský, Martin Smerek, Irenej Šereš, Peter Čurlej

Text:

The main idea was to design a set of multiple houses within a single unit, offering multi-family living, but also space for the more intimate nature of an independent family. A micro-urbanism for three generations was created, where space was created for the whole family to gather, visit friends, relax, and also private spaces where the brothers families can spend time in a closer circle.