Commercial And Residential Complex

By Redazione The Plan - 7 January 2010

The shopping mall and residential complex designed by Ofis Arhitekti occupies a central location in the Alpine town of Bohinjska Bistrica near lake Bohinj, Slovenia. The brief required a new commercial and residential complex where a former shopping mall had once stood. The two functions are, however, quite separate. A supermarket and a coffee shop occupy the ground floor while the square roof supports a four-storey apartment block and a communal garden for the apartment dwellers. The recessed ground-floor elevations comprise a characteristic combination of glazing, steel slabs and ample use of larch slat cladding.
The steeply sloped roof of the L-shaped residential volume by architects Rok Oman and Špela Videcnik incorporates the last two floors to create attic apartments. The gradient is especially accentuated over the east elevation, giving the effect of a stepped volume similar to the nearby mountains rising against the sky. This profile also preserves the panoramic views for neighbouring constructions to the north.
The apartments on both wings are compact, laid out along a central corridor. Sizes vary from bedsit to three-room apartment.
The more sheltered elevations of the residential volume present as open façades punctuated by linear balconies. This contrasts to the exposed western façade, which is more closed with recessed balconies flush with the outer wall.
The façade is clad with a decorative alternation of larch panels and slats, and fibre cement lozenges, these latter also used on the roof. The slender wooden slats forming the balcony and terrace parapets give the whole building a transparent lightness.