The Sanctuary House

On the outskirts of Warsaw, surrounded by forests, industrial buildings and suburban homes with their functional sheds and gabled roofs, the quasi-modernist family residence is integrated into the context through the use of a sloping roofs and fragmented volumes. The rational, contemporary approach is accentuated and experienced by its cubist, volumetric design, strengthened by both façades and roofs which eschew ornamental elements.

The Sanctuary House is a 500 m2 residence located just outside Warsaw, which has been designed closely together with its patrons; a young and talented hotelier, his entrepreneurial wife, and their children.

The question from the start was: what is the “new” Polish family house? The process involved a constant exchange of ideas in meetings, by email and FaceTime conversations. After ravishing through all the notes and sketches the main idea was twofold; ‘ordinariness’ and ‘otherness’.

‘Ordinariness’, the first idea, was inspired by the poetry of former Poet Laureate of New York Marie Howe in the book “The Kingdom of Ordinary Time”. Ordinary time is a phrase from religious ritual, which is used by the poet to describe the ordinary in our daily lives: the washing of dishes, the peeling of potatoes, the ironing, the ordinary family dinners- it is striking how these rituals of ordinary time themselves are a little bit like poetry carried out in space. They are kind of condensed, economical little packets of beauty and grace that carry so much more forward than is obvious. Therefore the family is a very ‘ordinary’ entity which requires ordinary and simple spaces.

In the sanctuary house ordinariness plays out its role in the square and rectangular windows, the vast white walls, the fireplace, the table, the nursery. The original horizontal ‘Ribbon window’ concept , which is Le Corbusier’s fourth point of modern architecture, has been flipped 90 degrees turning them into thin floor to ceiling windows which project columns of light on to the floor and allow children to look out of them.

‘Otherness’, the second idea, is a defining characteristic of architecture; not the literal, material scale or proportion of building parts or spaces, but the latent, immaterial possibility of readings of the same space as opposed to geometric coordinates. Recognizing the ‘other’ is an important part of the discipline.

Otherness has been played out in the spatial organisation of the house by planning the internal space upon that of a gothic church. Of course the area, volume, materiality and functions of a church are different to that of a house, however, the sacred role of the family deserve certain spatial similarities. Like a classical church, the house is longitudinal, stretching horizontally from East to West. The kitchen takes the place of the ‘choir’, the dining room is located in the ‘nave’ making the table the heart of the house while the two side ‘transepts’ in which the garage and living room are located, are shifted in response to the context and materially differentiated to appear as if they are coming out of the house like cupboard shelves.

From the entrance hall, the house is opened up to the beautiful lawn through vast windows, arranged around a semi-enclosed external terrace, which allows the owners to live inside and out, allowing plenty of intimacy but taking advantage of the best possible orientation.

All ‘service spaces’ i.e. entrance vestibules, bathrooms and storage rooms are located on the north side of the house allowing the large open plan of the kitchen and dining room to open up to the garden and to natural light throughout the day. This space which includes a vast dining table is given a pocket of double height space and a large window which works to underline the importance of this space.

The soft interior palette, mainly consisting of white walls, black granite, oak flooring
and blue and grey hues, preserves the serene atmosphere of the house in its surroundings. This gentle mood is complemented by the use of several beautiful art works and furniture pieces to suit the owners’ lifestyle. Facing the dining table is a spiral staircase which plays the part of a functional sculpture and connects the North and South axis and the ground with the first floor which holds the bedrooms and other private areas of the household.

The exterior envelope responds to the interior in a modernist manner while at the same time creating a playful and coherent order. Windows are placed in front of entrances and at the end of corridor axes in order to frame views. From the outside some windows include ‘chamfers’ which give elegant shadows and make the windows look as if they have been pressed like piano keys. The main mass of the house is white to allow the shadows of the trees to rest upon its surface while the side volumes are coloured in a rusty brown metal hue.

The sanctuary house fulfills many of the roles of traditional Roman and Renaissance villas: contemplation of and engagement with the natural world, space for reflection and play, and a grand yet broken composition that creates a sort of quasi-urbanity and autonomy in the landscape. The result is a beautiful ensemble - the fruit of many exchanged dreams, a house which will hold warmth and shape the life of the patron’s expanding family.

Project Team:

Architecture: Tommy Pniewski
tommypniewski.com
+48794456189

Photography: Jakub Certowicz
jakubcertowicz.pl

Interior Design: Karina Snuszka and Dora Kuc
Mood works
moodworks.pl

Structural drawings and building documentation:
Studio GC
studiogc.pl