U-Directed House from Grądkiewicz and Zajkowski

The U-directed house is located near Warsaw on an absolutely unique plot of land bordering the Kampinos Forest. The living area - the heart of the house is closed with walls on three sides, opening only and as strongly as possible only to the primeval forest.

U-directed House

The name U-directed captures 2 features that characterize the project. The shape of the idea scheme, which resembles a U closed on three sides, and its opening towards the wilderness. It is worth noting that the house is closed from the world by walls only up to a certain height. From inside the living area you can't see the neighbors or the street. Thanks to the windows near the ceiling and even at the height of the floor, the householders can see the upper parts of the trees of the pine forest surrounding the house. Inside, one gets the impression that the house stands alone in the middle of the wilderness and is surrounded only by the forest.

U-Directional House

One of the most significant issues that the designers faced during the creation of the project was the fact that the primeval forest to which the building opens is located on the northwest side of the plot. That is, given the project's assumptions, access to eastern and, even worse, southern light would be cut off for the living area. This problem was solved thanks to windows located in the upper part of the walls. Thanks to them, staying inside creates the impression that we are surrounded only by wilderness and neighbors are not there, while at the same time the rooms are bright and the sun reaches them at any time of the day. The living room has an unobstructed view of the wilderness thanks to a glass wall one and a half stories high, while at the same time a lot of sunshine reaches it thanks to windows placed around its perimeter in the upper part of the room on the east and south sides.

U-Directed House

The building consists of two interpenetrating masses. The dark body of the first floor and the light body of the first floor. The interior of the first floor itself rises above one story. Its extension, however, was not due to the desire to raise the walls, but to raise the roof and let light into the interior, creating a bright, high space. The night zone is enclosed in the lighter body of the first floor, which ideologically refers to the scheme of the first floor. The rooms that face east and south have only fairly standard windows. On the wilderness side, on the other hand, a wall of glass reaching the ceiling of the pitched roof has been designed.

U-Directional House

On the first floor, the designers, following the investor's guidelines, wanted to create a lot of space under the roof and not enclose the rooms with a flat ceiling. However, some rooms, such as the bathroom, do not need such heights, but in others the investor would like to have the ceiling as high as possible. The solution to this problem was to create uneven, unusual roof slopes. As a result, the ceiling is lower in one part and higher in the other. In the bathroom low, and in the bedroom very high providing a lot of air and space in the interior. The roof is gabled, but has a sloping ridge relative to the exterior walls. This allowed the height of the rooms to be adjusted as needed, and gave the body of the building an unusual character.