Staškov, Slovakia — 2015

Parish Office Staškov

Design of a parish office in the village of Staškov. A public building balancing functionality with a representative civic presence.

A parish office of 320 m² for the parish of Staškov, a village in the Kysuce region of northern Slovakia. A building of this type carries a double role: it houses everyday administrative work, and it stands as one of the recognisable public buildings in a small community. Those two demands pull in different directions — one toward plain efficiency, the other toward presence — and the design had to satisfy both without letting either dominate. The programme was organised so that public and working parts of the building are clearly separated, and the exterior was kept restrained enough to sit comfortably among its village neighbours. A public commission in a village is also a long-term one. Buildings like this are rarely rebuilt, so they have to absorb decades of changing use without being remodelled each time — which argues for generous, plainly shaped rooms over tightly fitted ones. At 320 m² the building is modest, and that modesty was treated as the correct scale rather than a limitation to disguise. Public buildings in a small municipality are procured and funded differently from private work, and that shapes the design as much as the brief does. Money typically arrives from more than one source and on more than one timetable, which favours a scheme that can be built in a defined sequence rather than one that only works complete. Approval passes through the municipality as well as the building authority, so the design is discussed in public before it is permitted — a process that tends to reward legible, conventional proposals and punish ones that need a paragraph of explanation. Accessibility requirements apply in full to any building the public enters, and on a compact rural site the ramp gradients and turning circles that follow from them frequently determine where the entrance can go. The building also has to be maintainable by whoever holds the keys, which in practice means a caretaker and a modest budget rather than a facilities contractor. Completed in 2015.

Category

Public

Year

2015

Location

Staškov, Slovakia

Area

320 m²

Client

Farnosť Staškov

Status

Completed