The holiday home was built in 1928, during the first golden age of the bath culture at Lake Balaton, by the architect László Bittmann. The 90-years-old building has a fascinating character with its high superstructure compared to its floorspace and a roof pitch more than 45 degree. Its foundation and the framing of its rounded openings are made of typical red sandstone from the Balaton Uplands. In its details you can recognize well-known, local features: rounded artificial stone stairs, larch windows with delicate ornamentation, balusters of concrete. The aim of the conversion was to get a house convenient for a 5-6-person family for both summer and winter use, while preserving the character of the building as much as possible. In order to relieve the functions inside the building, we designed a covered, open-air kitchen and dining room indispensable for a summer house – separate from it, invisible from the street.
The original windows of the house didn’t let much light inside, but the lighting of the new function groups and the need for winter use made new windows necessary. We didn’t want to change the characteristic proportions of the façade, that’s why we placed all new openings on the roof, which provide the whole building with light indirectly. It was easy to make a hole into the original wooden ceiling, therefore the visual connection between the two stories and the way of the light was easy to provide without a serious structural intervention. The conversion made the larch beams of remarkable size visible. Instead of the original ladder we made new stairs leading to the roof without cutting the original beams.
Zamárdi
2016
built
architect: András Márk Bartha