Yaw House

For centuries Poland was fought over and colonized by its predatory neighbors, while preserving its cultural identity in music and literature. A laggard in architectural innovation, it has begun to catch up and the Katowice-based KWK Promes has led the way. The studio that Robert Konieczny established in 1999 has won acclaim for its expressive daring, at home and abroad. As he explains in a recent monograph: “First, we search for a concept, an idea – a solution to all emerging design problems. I am a conceptualist, and this kind of design is most appealing to me”.

KWK have won awards for such large-scale public projects as the Przełomy Dialogue Center, a historical museum tucked under one corner of a square in Szczecin, and, in Ostrava, the transformation of a massive slaughterhouse into the Plato Contemporary Art Gallery (THE PLAN 148). But the firm is best known for its inventive residential designs, and the Yaw House is one of their most creative responses to site and program. It was commissioned by a young professional couple as a live-work space for their family in the foothills of the Beskid mountains in the south of Poland. It is located on a grassy slope and the confined plot is surrounded by traditional houses. The clients’ priorities were privacy,
light-filled living areas, a secluded office, and a spacious garage for the husband’s collection of motorbikes and off-road vehicles.

Over the years, Konieczny devised eight paths to guide his team to the appropriate concept for each site and program. For the Yaw House, it was the topographical path, in which the slope and the beauty of the natural setting determined the approach. The design began as a linear shed with a roof that is steeply pitched without eaves to shed snow and harmonize with neighboring houses. From that traditional form, the architects extruded a curved wing of living spaces with a green roof that merges into the hillside, like a...

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