Extension Čachtice

The extension is part of a set of buildings in the area of a former village brickworks. The collection in the expansive garden consists of a replica of the former brickmaker's dwelling (from 1995), a former reconstructed brick vault oven turned into an atelier (from 2010), and a shed (from 2016). The extension responds to an increased need for living space, especially for the family's weekend stays – it is essentially a new living room connected to the existing apartment layout. In its floor plan and sectional silhouette, it is actually a longitudinal extension of the existing house. Both buildings – the oven/atelier and the extension were characterized by a kind of preliminary predisposition. While the theme of the ruinous oven was the idea of a new envelope protecting the existing vault and its space, the theme of the extension was the character of the interior space in the continued outline of the existing house.
The starting point was the omission of the usual ceiling between the living space and the roof in the typical sectional figure of a gabled house. In the floor plan layout, it is about composing a transverse axis in relation to the longitudinal double axes of the roof and the room space. It is, in fact, a simple large room with an inserted gallery that connects to the attic of the existing house, leading to it via stairs. The fireplace and the library align internally, and their volume is transcribed onto the perimeter walls from the outside. The merging of the ground floor space and the attic space is not an innovative gesture – the unusualness of this relationship arises, in this case, precisely from the mutual displacement of the aforementioned two longitudinal axes.
For many decades, brick was fired on this site. The roof itself is, in a way, a tribute to brick and the culture of its ancient craft. Over 2/3 of all the old bricks used come from this location, with the rest from the nearby area. Unlike today’s machine production, they were made by hand and, after firing, were actually variably precise and of different shades. This makes such a simple surface, in reality, decorative. It reflects a possible reminder of Semper's teaching about the textile-woven origin of wall and surface constructions.
All surfaces – brick, metal, lime plaster, concrete products, plywood are without any further surface treatment. The gable along the room is glazed, lockable, and functions as a climate interzone for most of the year. From a building-physical perspective, such a heavy roof (or also the mutually supported two sloped ceiling boards) has excellent accumulation properties for the stability of the internal climate. In front of the extension, there is a metal sculpture by Peter Roller.