New Cultural Centre in Važecká

Walking through one of the popular parts of Košice, you can come across with something extraordinary. Thorns of a local cultural centre´s building will catch your attention from distance. If you come closer you will probably find some fearless kids trying to climb up its facade with the aim to get onto its upper terrace. Well, the fact is that it is permitted to climb the facade of this building. There could not be any better interaction between the citizens and their cultural centre.



In terms of EHMK 2013, a heat-exchange station was initially transformed into a cultural community centre. Therefore, there was made a local cultural centre, adequate to contemporary requirements for cultural social buildings. A dramaturgical program of this heat-exchanger should help community develop as well as initiate citizens’ participation and provide current cultural, educational and artistic activities to a wider audience. The original heat-exchange station disappeared beyond the expressive facade that looks like a spatial phenomenon or even a crag. In this case, the form follows the function. Architects were dealing with this heat-exchange station as with a climbing wall.

Transformation of the function is presented in the concept of transformation of clean cuboid form into the dynamic climbing wall. Removing triangular forms, window -openings were created. By adding similar forms into the exterior cover of the building the double facade was created. It is possible to climb up one part of this facade. There is designed an atrium with four big trees (space isolated from the surrounding world) at the top of this building. The whole form of community-sport centre acts independently in the neighborhood and it provides a different world for citizens.
The main concept of designing the heat-exchanger was a desire to create an object that would be a building and climbing wall, at the same time. This initial desire of the authors came true and today it is possible to climb a sidelong part of the facade. You can climb the facade onto the walkable roof with, already mentioned, open atrium.
The challenging and expressive form of an architectonic work- a facade furrowed in the rhythm of bevel surfaces. It is the main visual feature of the community centre-heat-exchanger Važecká in Košice, designed by architects from Atrium studio. In its peculiar forms there can be found some parallel with a morphology of cubist architecture from the beginning of the 20th century. Transformation of an unused building into a multi-purpose centre brought an attractive result- not only in the exterior form but also in its content