Design of a single-family, two-family house
Driving along Kard. Józefa Wyszyńskiego Street in Józefów, it is hard not to notice this single-family house designed by the Paweł Lis Architekci studio. "Gaijin" is not peculiar and does not resemble the Świdermajer style. It is different, a bit like a foreigner who stands out from the locals and looks around in an exotic country. Its facade on the street side is very distinctive. One gets the impression that the house looks out from the floor with a large square window.
GAIJIN house, Jozefow near Warsaw
Photo: Radek Galczynski © Pawel Lis Architekci
GAIJIN - a house as if from another world
The word "gaijin" (外人) means "outsider, foreigner" in Japanese. It can also be interpreted as "a character from another world - like an alien." That's somewhat the case with this house.
The two-building house in Jozefow, Wyszynski Street, was designed on an atmospheric, forest plot of 1,600 sq. m., with a limited footprint. The investor expected the building to have a simple, unique form, and the plot to accommodate four parking spaces. The second part of the task proved to be more challenging for the studio than the first.
GAIJIN house, Jozefow near Warsaw
Photo: Radek Galczynski © Pawel Lis Architekci
A house blended with nature
The house stands between trees. Its facade was clad with gray-beige clinker tiles in regular vertical strips. The tiles, with their texture and uneven hue, resemble the bark on the pine trees growing nearby. The aluminum-framed windows are highlighted with black planes of alucobond. The appearance of the house is defined by elevations with a strong, graphic character and the cubic form of the building.
GAIJIN house, Jozefow near Warsaw
Photo: Radek Galczynski © Pawel Lis Architekci
One house two premises - distribution of functions
Each of the two units of the Gaijin house has about 160 m² of floor space and two parking spaces - one in the garage, the other outside the building.
The first floor, with a height of 3 meters, houses a living room with a dining room, an open kitchen and a toilet, allowing for convenient organization of daily life. The large terrace on the living room side has not been covered. This is because of the large number of tall trees, which naturally shield this place from excessive sunlight.
The single flight staircase to the first floor was designed against a wall of raw concrete. The wall rises to a height of two stories and was specially prepared and secured already at the shell stage. The first floor elevation on the entrance side has a characteristic narrow line of windows in the bathrooms.
On the first floor there are a bedroom with bathroom, two rooms, a bathroom and a laundry room. This distribution of functions in the 160 m² dwelling with a garage ensures that the householders can properly organize their daily life, with a clear division into a living zone on the first floor and a more intimate zone on the first floor.
GAIJIN house, Jozefow near Warsaw
Photo: Radek Gałczyński © Paweł Lis Architekci
Structures and technologies
The windows are made of aluminum system, the facade was clad with clinker tile and alucobond panels. The house is powered by a heat pump, and there is space for a photovoltaic system on the roof.
GAIJIN house, Jozefow near Warsaw
Photo: Radek Galczynski © Pawel Lis Architekci
The house appeared in my sketchbook and materialized in Józefów. Such a process is still a fantastic phenomenon for me. The house has a lot of space around it, is modest, does not impose itself on anyone, and its facade of beige uneven tile fits into the pine forest. For us, "Gaijin" is peculiar, because it represents architecture appropriate to the times in which it was built, and with its form it certainly brings life to the local development of sleepy Jozefow.
- emphasizes the author of the project, architect Pawel Lis
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