Modernization and Reconstruction of the Retirement Home

The reconstruction of the obsolete and morally outdated complex of buildings originally designed as a poorhouse into a retirement home with independent living units and the most modern equipment for shared technical, sanitary, dining, rehabilitation, and medical spaces. The architects aimed to transform the original oversized social institution buildings, whose depressive, dark, and monotonous architecture embodied the aesthetic qualities of the period of their creation, into a lively and modern home for people who have not yet been written off due to their age. The project also included park landscaping around the site, solutions for traffic organization, and the supply of engineering networks to the building. The reconstruction comprised 4 residential and 2 technical floors of the accommodation section, an entrance social section, offices, operational rooms, and a dining room with facilities. The silhouette of the building determined by the number of floors, the shape of the roof, and the load-bearing structure was preserved after reconstruction; the original panel façade was dismantled and replaced with masonry. The original façades with the monotonous rhythm of small windows characteristic of panel buildings, which denied the historical development of the complex and did not reflect the use of the interior spaces, were newly designed as a series of individual houses, with divisions given by the original construction and their predominant function. The outer façade was insulated and supplemented with cantilevered bay windows from a reinforced concrete skeleton, terraces, structures for climbing plants, and a fire escape. The accommodation section with French windows in the residential units is yellow, the bays of the social rooms with large-scale glazing are clad in cembonit, the central part with technical facilities, surgeries, and bathrooms is green, the historical brick part is orange, and the balconies and terraces have blue polycarbonate parapets.