"Architects, sculptors, painters - we must all return to craftsmanship." This is an excerpt from the Bauhaus manifesto, the publication of which inaugurated the famous university in 1919. Although at first glance it has little in common with the Bauhaus, the summer house in Buda Ruska is in fact a craftsman's masterpiece. The design of the building, which combines tradition with modernity, was developed by {tag:pracownie}.
Buda Ruska is a village in the Suwałki region, located on the Czarna Hańcza River, which was founded in the late 18th century by Russian Old Believers - representatives of the Orthodox Church who rejected the liturgical reform carried out in the 17th century. Fleeing religious persecution, the Orthodox Orthodox settled in the eastern borderlands of the Republic. Old Believers still live in Buda Ruska to this day, but there are also new settlers.
A year-round holiday home in Buda Ruska
Photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski © Jan Strumiłło
Old Believers, president and piggery
The former Polish president, Bronislaw Komorowski, has his residence here, and residents and visitors are served by Chlewogaleria - a photography gallery run by traveler, photographer and ethnologist Piotr Malczewski. It is located in an unusual space - the building, built in the 1920s, is an example of traditional architecture of the region. An archetypal cottage with a gabled roof and an asymmetrically placed porch in the elevation, as well as walls covered with intricate woodcarving decoration. The building, designed by Jan Strumillo, is reminiscent of this, and many other wooden houses in the area.
A year-round holiday home in Buda Ruska
Photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski © Jan Strumiłło
A wooden house in Buda Ruska
The year-round holiday home in Buda Ruska is enclosed in a rectangular block, covered by a gabled, steep roof with generous eaves. The three-story, basement building was constructed of wood, using technologies that combine contemporary solutions with traditional construction methods. The house was built using log construction, which was reinforced with self-drilling carpentry screws that offset the need to pre-drill the material and the associated degradation of its properties. The logs themselves are made of seasoned solid spruce, obtained from the resources of the Wigry National Park. Each of the walls features a bay window in the form of a glazed veranda or porch - at the northern wall it is the so-called streetcar porch, which is closed with a segmental arch from above.
A year-round holiday home in Buda Ruska
Photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski © Jan Strumiłło
in tune with tradition
An important point of reference was the local building tradition:
The intention from the beginning was to design the house to fit in with the local landscape, which meant for us a direct reference to the local tradition of wooden houses. The gabled roof with visible purlin faces, the glazed porches, the tripartite facade covered with multi-partite boarding, the stone foundation and the wooden details are the main solutions that helped make the silhouette of the house fit in with other buildings in the village. At the same time, the project has a number of individual features that give it a peculiar character: a roof angle that is smaller than typical for the area, oxbows in the attic, wide eaves, chains instead of downpipes.
- explains the architect.
Jan Strumillo's know-how came from careful study of both the neighborhood's traditional architecture (for example, the shuttering boards decorating the facades) and contemporary buildings erected in a similar manner. Inspiration was provided, among others, by the realizations of Filip Miller in Jaczno or the house inPasieki, designed by Mikolaj Nowotniak.
A year-round holiday home in Buda Ruska
Photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski © Jan Strumiłło
The marriage of traditional and modern construction techniques posed some problems - due to the use of a heavy concrete building core, the structure settled by 12 centimeters for the first year. Only after the structure was stabilized was it possible to finish the facade.
A year-round vacation home in Buda Ruska
Photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski © Jan Strumiłło
without unnecessary plastic
The designer's ambition was to eliminate plastic from the building as far as possible. This intention succeeded for the most part, although in many places it proved difficult or too expensive to carry out. Examples of non-standard solutions are the insulation materials used: foam glass below ground, cellulose wool above ground. It was possible to almost completely avoid polyurethane foam - the windows were fixed with steel wedges and whiskers and the gaps were filled with wool - this solution is conducive to compensating for wood settlement. The water installation was made of crimped copper pipes and the role of windproofing is played by wood-based panels - thanks to the avoidance of a plastic membrane, the house remains open diffusively.
- explains the architect.
However, there is no lack of modern technology - the favorable environmental characteristics are taken care of here, among other things, by photovoltaic panels, which are placed on one of the roof slopes.
Year-round holiday home in Buda Ruska
Photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski © Jan Strumiłło
three in one
The house was designed to accommodate three families simultaneously. The building is characterized by a horizontal functional division - on the first floor there are spacious common spaces used by all users. Located here are the kitchen, living room with fireplace and dining room with an almost completely glazed veranda. There is also a shared toilet and utility room downstairs. The semi-private nature of the space is evidenced by small oculus in the walls of individual rooms.
A year-round vacation home in Buda Ruska
Photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski © Jan Strumiłło
The attic is completely different - here the spaces are more intimate, there is much less light entering the rooms, let in through the windows in the form of slow eyes. On the other hand, there are more bathrooms, as many as three, each of them belonging to a zone intended for one of the families living in the house.
A year-round vacation home in Buda Ruska
Photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski © Jan Strumiłło
heart of reinforced concrete
All spaces are organized around a reinforced concrete core, which is a spiral staircase. This is by far the least "traditional" part of the house in Buda Ruska - the balustrades, though wooden, were made using a modern, openwork pattern. In turn, light enters the interior through a large skylight, which is centrally located above the spiral staircase. It is obscured by thin, concentrically arranged, slats that soften the light entering the staircase. Despite the use of reinforced concrete, there was no shortage of details here that fit the "contemporary" element into the aesthetics of the house - primarily the drawing of wooden formwork, which was left on the walls of the reinforced concrete structure.
Year-round holiday home in Buda Ruska
Photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski © Jan Strumiłło
the power of local tradition
It's not just the materials and aesthetics that are local in this building. It's also the local residents, specialists who helped build the house.
Invaluable technical expertise was provided by local carpenters led by Tomasz Czyzynski and the foreman of the shell, stonework and earthworks, Ryszard Bondzio. Construction was carried out for the most part with the strength of local craftsmen and using materials produced in nearby factories.
- Jan Strumillo writes.
The furnishings of the house were created in a similar way. On the stove were tiles that were fired in a Bialystok factory, and a stove maker from a neighboring village helped install them. Doors and ornate windows with rich muntins were produced by companies fromSzypliszki andOlecko, while beds and furniture buildings were made by carpenters from Suwałki. "Imported" in this case are the doorknobs, which were cast near Warsaw according to the pattern developed at the famous factory of the Jozef and Wladyslaw Lubert brothers.
A year-round vacation home in Buda Ruska
Photo: Jędrzej Sokołowski © Jan Strumiłło
In the house, which was designed by Jan Strumillo, every detail was taken care of, and standard solutions were out of the question. The building's form and details make a conscious and respectful reference to local tradition. With this realization Buda Ruska gained another object, thanks to which the local building tradition can last and successfully face modern needs.
