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titleBlack Houses on Bukovac Street

locationZagreb

clientprivate

authorsTomislav Curkovic, Zoran Zidaric

collaboratorsHelena Norsic Patrcevic, Mise Renic

photographerRobert Les

project year2007

completion year2011

area size590 m2

total floor area2700 m2

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A black house requires a lot of client's confidence. Designing two black houses, one of which is for rental purpose, requires a lot more. In a sense of a programme, houses are meant to be two identical units, with the same scenario and life quality, accepting the orientation and privacy; each designed on the same principle while forming a spatial composition together. Besides the conceptual bonds, houses are physically connected by series of walls. Walls surround the site, but continue onto the base of each object to finish on shell of the house. The volume of the house consists of two elements; the shell and the fragile glass membrane as the core of the house. The shell with its perforations allows framing; reduced views and protection of the transparent core. Between the core and the shell number of atriums are formed, enabling certain functional zones to reach to the outside. „Framed“ outside spaces are formed in that way, and they give additional quality and character to the houses; the entrance, the passage to the garden, the wooden- decked terrace of the living room, the private terrace of the master bedroom. Besides the functionallity, these spaces have special atmosphere due to relation between the full and the empty, the play of light and shade and the (non)existing line between inner and outer space.