Straszyn is a village 12 km from the centre of Gdańsk. The project site is a sloping area, which slopes down towards the south and ends in a scarp overgrown with old trees. It is here that an intimate complex of houses was created, which received the name RUBRA because of its brick-red colour.
In search of inspiration:
When designing our estate, we tried to refer to the building past of the Gdansk region. The overhanging blocks of the storeys are reminiscent of the characteristic arcaded houses, and the form of the walls and canopies, inclined at an acute angle, can be compared to the diagonal braces used in timber-frame constructions.
Another inspiration was the picturesque plot of land, sloping down towards the south and ending in a wooded slope.
The sloping terrain itself encouraged the houses to be positioned in a cascading arrangement. This gives each house a better view, more light and a terrace and garden with a south-facing opening.
Why did we opt for clinker on the façade?
Hand-moulded bricks have been used in the area for many centuries. Among other things, it was used to build free-standing bread ovens.
The clinker which covers the facades of the designed buildings is a reference to the architecture which was created here in the inter-war period. One could mention the remains of railway station buildings, residential houses or the mill building - all erected in Pruszcz Gdański at the turn of the 20th century. The most important inspiration in this respect are the still existing hydroelectric power plants erected on the Radunia River since the beginning of the 20th century.
The Rubra Estate and its structure:
The estate consists of 6 semi-detached buildings and 1 detached building. The buildings are set in a cascade which allows them to relate to each other in the right way. Buildings positioned at the top of a sloping plot can have a better view from the floor above the buildings below.
We dispensed with full brick on the façade due to the large thickness of the external wall and the limited size of the development. We decided to use vertical clinker tiles.
We obtained the tiles from hand-moulded bricks. As each brick differs in size from the next, each of the cut bricks had to be processed by hand. Only then could they be laid vertically in regular horizontal lines.
All buildings have individually designed and constructed gardens, a reclaimed rainwater irrigation system and lighting. The slope has been preserved with old trees and the entire estate has received a lot of new planting.
In the difficult sloping terrain, a new road and pavement were built by the Investor as part of the access to the investment, which benefited the whole neighbouring development.
Type A, B, C semi-detached houses:
Each type A and B semi-detached house has 236m2 of floor space and a two-car garage. Type C houses look slightly different and each have 233m2 of usable floor space and a two-car garage.
On the ground floor, in addition to the living room with kitchen, there are also study rooms. The floors have four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a boiler room with laundry. The ground floors, which are 3 m high, are glazed with aluminium framed windows and equipped with an HS sliding system. All windows have been flush with the façade and set on projecting consoles outside the face of the structure.
Each building has concrete terraces raised above the ground on the south side. Their construction required a very strict technological regime, as the final parameters of the surface layer of ready-mixed concrete had to meet the requirements of the variable and harsh climate of northern Poland. To this end, we used bridge concrete based on metallurgical cement, which additionally guaranteed us a light shade of concrete. The result was a 20cm thick, weather-resistant, monolithic slab with a finished surface.
The terrace steps were also created in the same way.
In order to emphasise the separate character of the semi-detached buildings, I decided to move the neighbouring storey blocks away from each other.
A characteristic element of these houses is the form of the overhanging canopies of the first floor. It protects against excessive heat build-up in the rooms on the south side, and its diagonal terraces and walls add to the dynamics of the whole building block.
Each garage door is flush with the façade. As Horman does not provide a system solution for this type of installation of its doors, it was necessary to use consoles, to think about and design such a detail.
Type D detached house:
We managed to fit the house into an extremely charming location on the estate - right in front of a slope overgrown with old trees.
The detached house has 267 m2 of floor space and a two-car garage. On the ground floor, in addition to the living room and dining room with kitchen, there is a study. On the first floor we have designed 4 rooms and two bathrooms, as well as laundry and boiler rooms.
This is a house with a unique character. The ground floor has been recessed below the level of the entrance. It has a characteristic longitudinal window that looks like a gap in the rock wall. The garage is separated from the living area by a through-glazed corridor. This creates the effect that when entering the house, one is greeted by a view of the trees on the other side. The entrance side of the first floor is clad with seamed sheet metal and cut with vertical windows that extend to the edge of the roof. To the south, the house has a large terrace with a magnificent view of the old-growth forest.
Above the slope of the sloping escarpment, an additional smaller terrace in the form of a concrete footbridge hanging in the air has been successfully constructed.
Summary:
All buildings are powered by heat pumps and equipped with a recuperation system. The houses are in the process of installing solar batteries and energy storage. The entire estate has retention tanks and a rainwater recovery system, which will be used for e.g. garden watering.
The architecture of the Rubra estate is a contemporary interpretation of the historical buildings of the region. Simple blocks stacked on top of each other, sloping walls of overhangs and the red of burnt clinker give them a coherent, timeless character. The houses have cascaded into the sloping ground. All this makes the architecture of the estate fit in with the unusual plot and the whole context of the historic buildings of Gdansk Pomerania. This is one of our favourite projects.
