White Concrete Old House / I/O architects

Daniel Tapia

8 years ago

Architects: I/O architects
Location: Stara Zagora, Bulgaria
Team: Georgi Katov, Viara Jeliazkova, Rositsa Hristova
Area: 425.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Assen Emilov

Structural Engineering: Neo Desk, Petar Chernev

Text description provided by the architects. Prior to its reconstruction, this house from the 1020-ties was a romantic ruin surrounded by authentic and new-built fragments of ancient Augusta Traiana and rather isolated from the contemporary city, yet in its very center.

The intervention continues the game of time o sets and brings the design to a contemporary interpretation of the avant-garde, at the time the house was built. A new volume of white concrete complements the structure and the program of the old house.

The composition of the openings, the ambiguous elements of the addition and the materiality blend the two distinct entities. The space of the new stair and its design bring light into the center of the entire composition. The new glossy white concrete slabs integrate and conceal all the contemporary technology of the house.