Péterfia Corner, Debrecen

Architect: Péter Bordás
Text: Szabolcs Bence Török
Photos: György Palkó

Péterfia Street, which leads on to the Great Forest in Debrecen, may be described as the follow-up of Piac Street, which in turn also contains the main square of the city. Formerly functioning as the headquarters of trade unions, the building standing at an important site along this axis has been renewed and rebuilt owing to a comprehensive development which brought about radical changes in the original designs. Only a few hundred meters away from the Great Church, the skeleton of the formerly Modernist-style building has been retained, but transformations resulted in a brand new character as far as functions and exteriors are concerned.
The concept, which was a given for the designer BORD Architects, defined including premium-standard apartments and offices, as well as retails on the ground floor which now houses a reception area, a restaurant, a cafe and business that face the street with a full-length whole-front glass partition. The original pre-fab ferroconcrete pillar frame skeleton, the old stairway and lift core have been preserved in the spirit of recycling and reducing the loading on the environment. This framework has been filled with new contents and image by the designer. Essential properties of the new character are: elevating the building by two floors, which is gradually reduced to zero towards the lower neighbourhood and ends in a blade on the other end, the elimination of the former mezzanine character, which in turn was a solution to establishing connections with the street level and opening it outward, and the brand new facade design which guarantees new standards, functions and identity as well.

General design: BORD Építész Stúdió
Leading architect: Péter Bordás
Fellow architects: Róbert Benke, Péter Bukovszky, Zsófia Dobay, Róbert Gulyás, Dorka Hindy, György Kazamér, Csilla Kracker, Béla Marsal, Tamás Mezey, Kata Zih
HVAC: Zoltán Hollókövi – BORD Építész Stúdió
Structure: Zsigmond Dezső – Hydrastat Mérnöki Iroda Kft.
Landscape: András Kuhn – Gardenworks Kft.
Client: PB Invest Kft.