Trendo 11, Budapest

Architects: LAB5 architects
Text: Péter Debreczeni
Photos: György Palkó

In Budapest, it is rather difficult to find a well-suited site for development which is both affordable and suitable for the construction of a human-scale condominium. Developers tend to focus on large, neighbourhood-scale ensembles and avoid the risk and complexity of building modest-size apartment blocks in the existing urban fabric. The Trendo 11 condominium is a good example of how an innovative design approach and a bolder-than-average developers’ attitude can create high quality housing among very constrained (‘problematic’) circumstances.
By various coincidences, the house was built on a site with a 15% reserve in the buildability of the plot concerned, which allowed for experimentation. LAB5 architects designed a building that would make the most of the site’s potentials, and still be marketable. A sort of hybrid design was proposed for the site, which was originally intended for a mid-rise residential building, with the building’s perimeter nestling up to the site boundary, creating a side-rise courtyard house. In addition, the height of the building was steadily increased to maintain the average height of the required building height. By playing this game, it was possible to achieve that each apartment as well as the courtyard could be accessed from more than just one directions, and that each of the top apartments have a roof terrace of a meaningful reasonable size and functions.

Leading architects: Linda Erdélyi, András Dobos, Balázs Korényi, Virág Anna Gáspár
Project architect: Zoltán Szegedi
Architects: Fruzsina Barta, Eszter Macsuga, Ádám Mester, Diána Németh
Structure: Kerek és Pintér Engineering
Framework: Dudinszky Tervező Ltd.
Strucural expert: Épszerkinfo
HVAC: Temesvári Tervező Ltd.
Electrical engineering: Kelevill
Fire protection: Fireeng
Landscape: Táj-Consult
Traffic: Közlekedés Ltd.
Elevators: Schindler Hungária Ltd.