Project: MDP House
Architects: Vinklu
Location: Alexandru Cel Bun, Romania
Area: 1,313 sf
Year: 2022
Photographs by: Vlad Albu
MDP House by Vinklu
The MDP House, designed by Vinklu in Alexandru Cel Bun, Romania, offers a unique and stratified living experience on multiple levels. Situated at the end of a street, the house takes advantage of the natural slope of the land and its orientation towards the sun and context. The design avoids hallways and instead creates a woven and sculpted space, with each function oriented towards the sun and privacy from neighbors.
A perimeter veranda blurs the boundary between inside and outside, providing additional protection and access to each space directly from the outdoors. The vertical development of the living room creates a captivating interior pathway, culminating in a panoramic window that enhances the journey and offers a focal point for each user. The house is constructed with local materials and is designed for future development, with provisions for a possible attic space.
A house on the ground floor, at the border of the city of Piatra Neamt, offers an “everyday” experience stratified on several levels: contextual, morphological, visual and orientation/positioning on the plot; horizontal vertical; inside, outside. Located at the end of the street, behind the “State Reserves”, densely planted, the land has a natural slope and is divided into two portions with a steep difference in level, from the access side to the base. At the same time, orientation towards the sun and context was a factor in the final positioning of the house.
The general functional principle was a house without hallways, a woven, sculpted space, with the necessary functions oriented well towards the sun, but also ferrites from the neighbors. At the same time, in order to emphasize living on the ground floor, a perimeter veranda dissolves the strong boundary between the outside and the inside, offering additional protection to the facade against the weather and direct sunlight. Each space has level access, directly to the outside. The final positioning was “self-determined” by putting together the basic considerations regarding topography, orientation, access, etc. The planimetry is a result of the final positioning, the needs of the family, the stratification of a regular grid and a structural principle with rigid “rooms”. Therefore, fixing the living room to the south corner generated the final solution. All the windows have the same size, less the panorama from the living room and the one from the master bathroom.
The turning point of the project is the vertical development of the living room, a natural continuation of the “compression” of the living space. The resulting route, from the entrance to the final view, offers an exaltation in the experience of the journey, complete with a concentration of space at the scale of each user through the “panorama” window. I emphasize here more the things that are lived, namely this interior pathway made up of different functional spaces, which expand, focus, have openings to different areas and lights, and offer a living dimension to the living, to the detriment of some walls with or without doors, give I lead you to the “destination”.
The whole project is executed with local materials and teams. The superstructure is made of timeframe, with an external finish of thermo-treated pine (naturally aged) and outlined by the regular structure of the veranda, with open corners. The house is also designed for future development, the height of the roof is decided considering a possible attic. In this sense, a place for a swinging staircase is provided at the end of the dining area.
