Traditional Design: Compact Karst House

Dekleva Gregoric Architects Meld Tradition and Modern Technology in their Stony Compact House

The Karst region, between the Trieste Bay and the Vipavska Valley in Slovenia, is known for its tradition of small, compact, stony and almost windowless houses, which have stood the test of time.

In this project, Dekleva Gregoric Architects have redefined a traditional stony Karst house in the village of Štanjel, maintaining its conventional charm, whilst adjusting it for the needs of a young modern family.

The space is divided into two inserted wooden volumes, in which the ground floor contains a kitchen and a dining or bathroom, and in the upper floor there is a master bedroom and children’s room. We asked architect Aljoša Dekleva, more about this project, which addresses the relationship between contemporary and traditional home design:

TP: How does the house compliment its surrounding environment?
Aljoša Dekleva: The house materially shows explicit dichotomy of outdoor and indoor; of natural space and social space.

TP: What challenges did you face?
AD: We took the challenge to understand the traditional concepts of building, e.g. small scale volumes or the logic of the stone structuring, and to interpret this understanding in a contemporary approach and available building techniques.

TP: What appeals to you most, about this completed project?
AD: The feature we like the most is the smallness, the sustainability of the house and the fact of the house being a shelter, a shelter within the nature, as the houses in the Karst region.