Gebauer Street Building / Studiobazaar

Gebauer Street Building / Studiobazaar

+ 19

Text description provided by the architects. On the edge of the city center of Pécs and the slopes of Mecsek, located in the southwestern part of Hungary, the building with its compact mass with a flat roof wants to integrate into the rather mixed and heterogeneous environment of the street Gebauer Erno. In Gebauer Ernő Street, one can observe modernist family houses and flat-roofed buildings built in the second half of the 20th century, the latter with refined details, clinker brick inserts, concrete balconies, natural stone, which are proof of a quality built environment.

The building density on the street is changing, family houses are slowly being replaced by apartment buildings, and several newly built blocks have appeared on the street in recent years. The relatively small building – with 4 apartments and indoor parking – was designed to represent and tell the quality of modernist buildings of the last century in its exterior and interior spaces and the details of its facade.

The site is north-south, slightly sloping and faces the city center to the south and Mecsek with the TV tower to the north. Based on the characteristics of the orientation, the relatively narrow site and the surrounding densely built environment, an image of a compact two-story building sitting on the parking lot like a plinth was sketched. The solid and monolithic building is complemented and enriched by the narrow balconies, the roof terraces, the structure of the pedestrian bridge, the external stair block and the single-pitched roof built on the flat roof.

Due to the partially underground garage, the street facade has a two-storey design thus forming a connection between the height of the building to the east and the family house to the west. The street view is further nuanced by the steel pergola structure, which can be used to accommodate sliding and potentially overgrown shade.

The building’s garage level extends continuously from the ground to the south courtyard, supporting the two-story flat-roofed massing as a plinth. The exposed concrete plinth follows the natural terrain on both sides, with a car ramp on the east side and a terraced garden on the west side. Wild grapes run up to the concrete plinth to “swallow” the plinth one day, further enhancing the clinker brick facade.

The tight form and use of materials in the building evoke the modernist tradition typical of Pécs, the hand-stitched brickwork represents durability and quality, and the large window openings are accentuated by thin steel frames. The projecting balconies, the pergola and the awning are light metal structures, gently sliding on the masonry.

The exterior stair block, defined as an exposed concrete cube, is connected to the street and also exposed concrete fence by a concrete bridge that functions as a pedestrian entrance. This mode of additive forming also concerns the high-roofed mass covered with gray sheet metal at the top of the building, which remains almost unnoticed from the street.