Barbecue season is in full swing - taking advantage of the weather, we try to spend as much time as possible outdoors, playing sports, meeting friends and family, cooking or just relaxing. In the city, it is not easy to get a private patch of green space - for those who cannot count on a home garden, Family Allotment Gardens, which have become increasingly popular in recent years, come to the rescue. The design of a small, but highly distinctive, house in one such garden was handled by NOKE Architects.
The idea of Family Allotment Gardens has a long history. Initially associated with the care of workers and the development of young people, they were established in the most industrialized cities devoid of greenery - the first one was established in 1895 in Leipzig, from where the idea quickly spread to neighboring countries. Just two years later, thanks to the initiative of Dr. Jan Jalkowski, the pioneering allotment gardens could be enjoyed by indigent people living in Grudziadz, who received plots as part of an establishment called "Sunbathes." In the following years, new ROD complexes appeared one after another at an exponential rate - today there are more than 4,500 allotment gardens in Poland, within which there are almost one million plots.
creative garden
We do not associate allotment gardens with architecture of the highest order. Decaying sheds for gardening equipment, old, grayed-out pergolas and rest houses that grow organically over the years with new and different sections have an undeniable charm, although they do not always look aesthetically pleasing. Those whose sense of aesthetics prompts them to seek beauty in spaces of a more orderly nature can use as inspiration the House of Color, designed by the NOKE Architects studio, which stood on one of the plots of the Family Allotment Gardens in Warsaw's Żoliborz district.
House of color on an allotment garden from NOKE Architects.
Photo: Piotr Maciaszek © NOKE Architects
House of Color was created for Magda Grabowska-Waclawek, a dancer and audiovisual artist known by her stage name Bovska, and her partner, Grzegorz Waclawek, founder of Animoon animation studio. The creative duo decided to purchase a ROD plot in search of a space that would provide suitable conditions for artistic work. Such a space, which is also a reflection of the owners' creative characters, was designed by Piotr Maciaszek, Karol Pasternak and Mateusz Jaworski of NOKE Architects. However, Bovska also contributed her three cents, creating a cartoon concept of a gate leading inside the garden. The red gate, in addition to a fancy floral motif, depicts Lusia, a female dog belonging to the owners.
It has become established that the gates to individual gardens are their business cards. With their original forms, they reflect the personalities of individual allotment holders, members of the community that is ROD, " explains Piotr Maciaszek of NOKE Architects.
House of color on an allotment garden from NOKE Architects
Photo: Piotr Maciaszek © NOKE Architects
red accent
Already the gate with its color betrays the leitmotif of the premise designed by NOKE - just like it, most of the elements that make up RED ROD were made in red. Immediately after entering through the gate, the structure of the most important element of the project emerges from among the bushes - a 35-square-meter allotment house decorated with red accents. Despite the fact that the object had to be inscribed in a not very set, very narrow plot of land with a shape close to a trapezoid, its functionality did not suffer. NOKE's designers managed to situate the cottage in a small space, which includes a living space with a kitchen and a work area for Magda and Gregory, a sleeping alcove and a bathroom. The front elevation, preceded by a terrace set on an aluminum red structure, was made entirely of large-format sliding windows, so that on sunny days the cottage's interior space organically merges with the surrounding garden. Then both work and leisure move outside.
A house of color on an allotment garden from NOKE Architects.
Photo: Piotr Maciaszek © NOKE Architects
Perhaps the most spectacular element of the RED ROD house is its bathroom. From the outside, its presence is heralded by a vertical cylinder protruding above the roof slope, resembling by its form a giant chimney. Entering the bathroom, we are transported to an oval space, which is lined with vertical, intensely blue ceramic tiles, contrasting with the cottage's interior decorated in warm colors. The architects also took care of the constant contact with nature when designing the bathroom area - its high-slung roof is entirely made of glass, and when you look up, lush treetops appear.
A house of color on an allotment garden from NOKE Architects
Photo: Piotr Maciaszek © NOKE Architects
green enclave
TheHouse of Color is submerged in vegetation - in addition to greenhouses and new plantings, the flora found on site was also taken care of:
We tried to preserve all the greenery we found on the plot. We didn't cut down a single tree, and we consider our greatest success to be saving this centuries-old vine. It was disentangled from the old trellis and moved to the new one," says Karol Pasternak, designer of NOKE Architects.
The lush vegetation provides much-needed privacy in the city center. The way the cottage has been oriented is also protected from the prying eyes of the owners - from the side of the already described red gate, only the trellis covered with vines is visible, while the terrace, on the other hand, faces inside the garden, which is densely covered with trees and shrubs. There, too, is a massive concrete table, reached by a path lined with raspberry-colored trunks.
A house of color on an allotment garden from NOKE Architects.
Photo: Wojciech Woźniak © NOKE Architects
The House of Color is a bold proposal from the NOKE Architects studio, which gives a new perspective on garden architecture erected within Family Allotment Gardens. Planning on a small plot of land, in the maze of legal precincts, the architects managed to create a project that is characterized by functionality and an unprecedented expression among other examples of such architecture. Above all, it provides its owners with privacy and a place where relaxation is combined with creative work.
