2019
Sofia, Bulgaria / Sofia Town Invest
The building is located at the very heart of the center of Sofia, Bulgaria. The house was in a very bad state of disrepair. One third of the home was destroyed by a bomb, which affected the entire construction of the house. Although the façade ornaments were rather simple, the initial project drawings from 1912 showed a more lavish and eclectic design. Because of their specificity it was very difficult to find similar existing examples in Sofia.
The house serves as a residential space for a family with a small office space. In order to insure the gradual transition from public space to private and intimate space, the entrance is located on the side of the house also leading to the backyard. For the same reason, the three outer facades - the one facing the street and the two side ones - play the role of a dense envelope - a boundary between outside and inside. On those facades, with the help of a sculptor, the original emblematic ornamentation of the 1912 house is illustrated. The back façade, facing the yard, has a much different approach. Its role is to unite the inner part of the home with that of the yard, by making the garden an extension of the interior space. This façade is composed of glass and a doubling metal panel decorative metal sunscreen. Parts of these metal panels also continue onto the roof, where the two systems, the pre-existing historic ornamental façade and the new raster of metal panels, overlap.
The rectangular raster on the rear façade is also imprinted on the yard, this time vertically. Several pots of trees protrude to
the level of the fence, the English courtyard to the basement sinks down as their subtracted form. There are different areas in the otherwise small yard, which allow for a variety of use and degrees of access from the outside. Last but not least, the large pots with raised trees allow for another degree of privacy for the users.
The house has four levels above ground and the basement occupies the boundaries of the entire property. The main entrance of the house is located on the mezzanine level, so that it leads with only one stairs case to the ground floor and to the living room on the first floor. An openwork staircase to the glass facade connects the living room with the garden. On the second floor is the master bedroom, and the third attic with roof glazing and variable height is a children's area. As the floor of the bedroom does not occupy the entire floor area between the facades, its slab is separated from the side facades and frees up a double height of 6 meters in the living room and office space. This feeling of levitation on the second floor is the result of the constructive decision of Eng. Georgi Kolchakov. In order to free up the living room as much as possible, the second floor does not step on columns, but is hung on metal tensioners to the top plate. The complete glazing of the second floor to the air above the living room connects the space into one continuous whole. This is how an almost destroyed house in the ideal center of the city returns to life with modern living conditions on the inside and a restored appearance of representing the spirit of the time of old Sofia on the outside.
