| project: | 2022 |
| design: | Ondra |
| location: | Pardubice |
A Mix of Old and New
To demolish or not to demolish, to extend? Extend! But how? It was a long process full of dead ends. After more than two years of thinking, debating and gathering the courage to act, this simple proposal for the extension of Machač’s Cottage No. 71 finally emerged.
We realised just how important the cottage is to us, and that we simply cannot demolish it. After all the years we have had it, it has become part of our family. The solution became an extension that wraps around and grows together with the old cottage. The exterior of the old cottage becomes the interior of the new one.
And since there are far too many requirements — with more constantly being added — the idea was simple: create a continuous sequence of interconnected rooms that can be walked through in a loop. Different little corners for a beer tap and keg, a bathroom, toilet, three bedrooms, two studies, a dressing room, a workshop for Dad, a workshop for Mum, a place for a potter’s wheel, fishing gear, storage for the most important and valuable old things, a utility room, entrance hall, a bench for changing shoes, a kitchen, living space… and ideally everything accessible without steps and connected to the outdoor terrace. Oh, and a vegetable garden on the roof!
All of this was somehow squeezed into a footprint of just 80 m².
And hopefully, we’ll start building soon.
We’ve got the bricks! Wish us luck!