Creative studios and artist apartments in Tatabánya

My name is Boglárka Abrán, I graduated in July 2023 with a bachelor's degree in Architecture at the Budapest University of Technology, and since then I have been working for the 8th district municipality of Budapest, renovating social housing. This district has the highest number of local government owned houses and flats in the country today, as well as a comprehensive social programme to fight housing poverty. The renovation of social rented housing is a very exciting subject for me, to be both cost-effective and to create the most functional and usable compact spaces possible. I am involved in design, project coordination and I also monitor the construction, so I have an overview of the whole renovation process. Our office is not a typical architectural design studio in this respect, I work a lot with sociologists, economists, community organisers, for example recently we designed accessible housing where we involved a disability referent in the design process. This close inter-professional collaboration broadens our knowledge, and openness to different insights and experiences is essential. Alongside my work, I have also had the opportunity to teach in the Department of Residential Building Design at the Budapest University of Technology (BME), I have been an invited consultant for the second year course Residential Building Design 2, and I would like to pursue this further.

The project creates a home and studio for young artists through the adaptive reuse of an existing building, responding to both the housing crisis and global climate change. Small centres and densities are barely developed in the fabric of the city where the project is located.Firstly the plan attempts to address this and to create a global concept for an area of lower intensity but with great potential.The chosen design site,Turul Park and its surroundings in Tatabánya, where residential functions are mixed with a school, a row of garages and abandoned department store buildings, is suitable for the creation of a new centre in terms of both building stock and existing functions.The plan envisages the Turul Park area as a new urban hub, creating a broad mix of functions for the whole area, and thus creating a vibrant new urban centre from a deprived quarter used by young people. One of the buildings of the new artistic, urban hub is the proposed Artist's House.The building will be formed from the conversion of an existing row of shops and an associated two-storey extension.The use zones will be strictly separated, with workshops in the existing part of the building and residential use in the extension. The existing part of the building, on the ground floor, communicates with its surroundings, opening in two directions to create an atmosphere.The design of the floor plan was preceded by research into the different artistic disciplines and their processes.The strict ordering of the studios according to cleanliness and the rigidity of the existing support structure are softened by flexible, transparent spaces, curtains and common areas. The floor plan of the extension is formed by a row of flatlets with the same layout.The tiny, compact flats are designed with furniture in mind, making them an attractive housing solution for a young adult.The private spaces of the house are completed by communal spaces for residents, wide corridors and laundry rooms.The design keeps the private zones for young adults and does not seek to outsource all the communal functions of the homes. The facade design of the house relates to the nearby residential buildings and the existing character of the ground floor workshop.Its openings and concrete parapets are reminiscent of the surrounding buildings.The link to socialist realist buildings, which are often viewed dubiously today, is an unusual venture,but the house offsets this with its contemporary facade tiling and grouting.