Mighty and more than 7 decades old house in Kranj for many people didn’t promise much at the first glance – you could easily say that it has seen some better times. However its potential was recognized by their new owners who wanted to create two separate apartments for them as a young family and their parents.

When planning a new house design, we used an existing volume of the house, but the interior of the building required a completely new floor plan and design since the old one was not suitable anymore for the modern way of life, especially if you try to divide the house into two different apartments. The existing supporting walls have been preserved, there were only added some breakthroughs where needed.

A modern extension was added to the building inside of which is a hidden main staircase that leads to the separate entrances of the two apartments. There is also an extension of the living room which works as a winter garden in the ground floor and a summer terrace in the 1st floor.

We designed the central part of the building as a service volume for kitchens and bathrooms with all the needed installations. Due to the orientation of the house, the living areas had to be located in a smaller part of the existing floor plan and the bedroom with wardrobe in a larger part, so we withdrew the kitchen from the living room to the room where was once the corridor and with that increased the entire area of daytime living space. A part of the last reinforced concrete slab was removed so the new opening in the ceiling visually opened the space. The newly acquired gallery at which the children’s playroom is located and the living room are connected with the open staircase, which no longer represents just a functional element but also becomes a design element in the room.