red apple
2010-2013
Sofia, Bulgaria / SofBuild
Here is encoded the process of brick making. The plot is the intersection of residential and public areas. The “residential factory” turned into lofts keeps that dualistic character and contains many opposites. We traced the contrasts between big and small, open and closed, public and private, penetrable and solid. We dissolved the boundaries between the building and its surroundings through intermediate zones where they intermingle. The sticking out elements cast shadows in summer and prevent from overheating. They form fields of force most visible in the wet effect of the protruding bricks on the cantilevers. In the larger city context people have two
contradicting needs. First is the desire for maximum individualizing one’s own home in contrast to the unified typified socialistic blocks. On the other hand is the urgent necessity for a more homogeneous urban fabric which is really broken also as a result of the first. We tried to console both contradictions. The building has a standing out individuality and all of its 61 apartments are different. Through its dissolving boundaries the building is in a close contact with its surroundings. It is an entire organism embedded in the neighbourhood. All of its elements are subordinated to the whole. So it is a continuous urban fabric firmly connected with the existing.
