Only the bathroom has been separated from the other key-functions. Room for an everyday commodity such as the washing machine completes the service level, making room and laundry services unnecessary
Only the bathroom has been separated from the other key-functions. Room for an everyday commodity such as the washing machine completes the service level, making room and laundry services unnecessary
Big may be beautiful in terms of space, but building eXtra eXtra Small, like this 43 m2 in-fill town house in Slovenia, can also offer supreme and delicate qualities. Step inside the house and follow the sculptural staircase and you’ll discover that the sky has been invited inside the bedroom.
Big may be beautiful in terms of space, but building eXtra eXtra Small, like this 43 m2 in-fill town house in Slovenia, can also offer supreme and delicate qualities. Step inside the house and follow the sculptural staircase and you’ll discover that the sky has been invited inside the bedroom.
Concept
On a site with limited space – where local architecture regulations are restricted too - the task of rebuilding a non-nostalgic, contemporary house in a historic town centre is not an easy one. The most important request from the client was to bring more daylight inside the small urban house. At the same time local heritage authorities demanded a typical sloping roof, these conditions made it ideal for the use of VELUX roof windows.
Regarding functionality the house has a simple and classical design with all modern basic facilities fully integrated that the client would need now and in the future. The house is like a reversed summer cottage. The house has been created as an overnight city home in the capital for a senior couple, who normally lives in the Slovenian countryside without the possibilities offered by the city. The townhouse brings the client closer to that part of life – from live jazz concerts to delicate restaurants and bar experiences – and thus functions as a private ‘hotel apartment’.
Big may be beautiful in terms of space, but building eXtra eXtra Small, like this 43 m2 in-fill town house in Slovenia, can also offer supreme and delicate qualities. Step inside the house and follow the sculptural staircase and you’ll discover that the sky has been invited inside the bedroom.
Materials
The former warehouse function has been a major inspiration in the use of raw and yet refined, industrial materials: Eternit and plywood covers and dominates the façades facing the street, with concrete and different-sized glass windows as modest contrasts to the plastered surface (e.g. the huge window towards the small terrace). This makes the XXS House delicate and simple in the monochrome Japanese manner without pretending to be minimalist. As a contrast, a rather luxurious material such as terrazzo is widely used as floor material and kitchen working surfaces indoors (including the sink), a strong request of the client to create a Mediterranean touch and personal memory reference.
Interior
The metal staircase leading to the attic stands in the middle of the living space as a lonely piece of contemporary sculpture. The uneven steps make it look like a folding ladder – perhaps another playful reminiscent of the former warehouse function. Putting kitchen, dining, living and relaxing functions in the all–in-one-and-the–same-room compliments the idea of creating a hotel suite.
The upper floor, in the attic, just a few steps up the ‘ladder’, reveals the bedroom with two king-size beds on each side of the thin, angled iron rail. Total privacy with a view to the sky emphasises the quietness of the old, historic neighbourhood with the monastery not far away. What a perfect shelter and set-up for a monk, a travel-light nomad or anyone longing for contemplation in the middle of a busy city.
Site/location
Just like the surrounding, small town houses in the Krakovo neighbourhood in the centre of beautiful and historic Ljubljana, XXS House fits in elegantly in a modest and yet different way. Krakovo is a quiet part of the city with no other open-air places than the narrow lanes crossing each other, creating a kind of pseudo-squares.
The house is originally one half of a stable and former warehouse with tiny windows. The volume of the house after the rebuilding, defined by the local cultural heritage authority, is exactly the same as before, apart from a more contemporary way of designing the windows.
‘I used to live in the house, when I was an architecture student (before transforming it into the XXS House). In fact, my parents happen to be the clients of the XXS house and bought it in the mid- 90s as an investment’, explains Aljosa Dekleva, one half of the architecture company Dekleva-Gregoric Arhitekti. ‘This was especially fortunate because the school of architecture is situated just 200 meters away’. windows.
Materials
The former warehouse function has been a major inspiration in the use of raw and yet refined, industrial materials: Eternit and plywood covers and dominates the façades facing the street, with concrete and different-sized glass windows as modest contrasts to the plastered surface (e.g. the huge window towards the small terrace). This makes the XXS House delicate and simple in the monochrome Japanese manner without pretending to be minimalist. As a contrast, a rather luxurious material such as terrazzo is widely used as floor material and kitchen working surfaces indoors (including the sink), a strong request of the client to create a Mediterranean touch and personal memory reference.
Interior
The metal staircase leading to the attic stands in the middle of the living space as a lonely piece of contemporary sculpture. The uneven steps make it look like a folding ladder – perhaps another playful reminiscent of the former warehouse function. Putting kitchen, dining, living and relaxing functions in the all–in-one-and-the–same-room compliments the idea of creating a hotel suite.
The upper floor, in the attic, just a few steps up the ‘ladder’, reveals the bedroom with two king-size beds on each side of the thin, angled iron rail. Total privacy with a view to the sky emphasises the quietness of the old, historic neighbourhood with the monastery not far away. What a perfect shelter and set-up for a monk, a travel-light nomad or anyone longing for contemplation in the middle of a busy city.
Materials
The former warehouse function has been a major inspiration in the use of raw and yet refined, industrial materials: Eternit and plywood covers and dominates the façades facing the street, with concrete and different-sized glass windows as modest contrasts to the plastered surface (e.g. the huge window towards the small terrace). This makes the XXS House delicate and simple in the monochrome Japanese manner without pretending to be minimalist. As a contrast, a rather luxurious material such as terrazzo is widely used as floor material and kitchen working surfaces indoors (including the sink), a strong request of the client to create a Mediterranean touch and personal memory reference.
Interior
The metal staircase leading to the attic stands in the middle of the living space as a lonely piece of contemporary sculpture. The uneven steps make it look like a folding ladder – perhaps another playful reminiscent of the former warehouse function. Putting kitchen, dining, living and relaxing functions in the all–in-one-and-the–same-room compliments the idea of creating a hotel suite.
The upper floor, in the attic, just a few steps up the ‘ladder’, reveals the bedroom with two king-size beds on each side of the thin, angled iron rail. Total privacy with a view to the sky emphasises the quietness of the old, historic neighbourhood with the monastery not far away. What a perfect shelter and set-up for a monk, a travel-light nomad or anyone longing for contemplation in the middle of a busy city.
Materials
The former warehouse function has been a major inspiration in the use of raw and yet refined, industrial materials: Eternit and plywood covers and dominates the façades facing the street, with concrete and different-sized glass windows as modest contrasts to the plastered surface (e.g. the huge window towards the small terrace). This makes the XXS House delicate and simple in the monochrome Japanese manner without pretending to be minimalist. As a contrast, a rather luxurious material such as terrazzo is widely used as floor material and kitchen working surfaces indoors (including the sink), a strong request of the client to create a Mediterranean touch and personal memory reference.
Interior
The metal staircase leading to the attic stands in the middle of the living space as a lonely piece of contemporary sculpture. The uneven steps make it look like a folding ladder – perhaps another playful reminiscent of the former warehouse function. Putting kitchen, dining, living and relaxing functions in the all–in-one-and-the–same-room compliments the idea of creating a hotel suite.
The upper floor, in the attic, just a few steps up the ‘ladder’, reveals the bedroom with two king-size beds on each side of the thin, angled iron rail. Total privacy with a view to the sky emphasises the quietness of the old, historic neighbourhood with the monastery not far away. What a perfect shelter and set-up for a monk, a travel-light nomad or anyone longing for contemplation in the middle of a busy city.
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