A Detached Family House, Veszprém – House of the Year, Special Award 2015

Architects: Zsolt György Kovács, Jana Beránková, Dávid Kovács
Text: Tamás Ulrich
Photos: Dávid Kovács

The site is one of the most beautiful one in Veszprém, considering both natural features and its built environment made up of protected historic buildings. It is located right at the foot of St Benedictine’s Hill, next to Kollégium Street on a natural plateau wedged between Séd stream, the street and the vertical rocky face of the hill. The lot has an irregular shape, its like an elongated rectangle with changing width with the rocky mass of St Benedictine’s hill towering above. This development has been seated on the section of the lot opening up and widening towards the stream: it actuallyhas a direct view of the bridges spanning over the stream. The newly built family house stand partly to replace the protected historic building originally standing there by preserving and integrating its still existing northern and western facade walls, to evoke the mass of the old building. Logically configurated, its clear-cut horizontal plan features a classic L shape slightly spiced up at the junction of the old house and the new wing with the gnetly broken geometrical interplay of the meeting point of the two different perpendicular system of lines. The living room, the dining room doubling as a kitchen, the partly roofed deck in front of them, all the main living areas face south, towards the main attractions, the structures of the castle, the statues of the kings, the Séd stream, the rocky face, and the garden belonging to the real estate. The tiny patio between the house and the rock face there is a back garden, the rear rooms can also be opened in this direction, and the windows let in natural light and air and there was enough room for a tiny green garden creeping up.

Architecture: Veszprémi Építész Műhely Bt.
Architects: Zsolt György Kovács, Jana Beránková, Dávid Kovács
Structure: Imre Szabó – Traverz 50 Kft.
HVAC: Balázs Sasvári