Red Apple Residential Building

Location This residential building (11000 sq.m) with shops and small office part is located near the citycenter between a park and a stadium, amidst concrete blocks from the 70's. Continuity The building connects past and present using brick, rather forgotten in Sofia. Tower It has the size of the existing blocks. Seen from different angles it changes proportions. Dynamics The façade openings are regular as the brick bond. Some are missing while others appear exaggerated & as huge double-height glazings. Scale Behind are 6m-high living rooms - contrasting exaggerated spaces. Above the building are skylights, installations or tree-pots like huge building blocks as though the process is unfinished, giving the allusion of a brickyard. In-and-out The void in the middle is another exaggerated space changing the inside/outside concept. The volumes and trees create an intermediate zone where the in/out boundaries become permeable. At ground level this is a proper public space. Public Private plots in Sofia usually receive fences. Nevertheless this one is open, its space not been taken away but given back to the neighbourhood.

Permeability The wall is interrupted by the loggias and the doubleheight glazings. In the brickscale the boundary is permeable on the cantilevers, the Flemish bond headers popping halfway out. Transparency The metalgrille balconies seem slightly unfinished reminding of a structure with unexhausted growing potential. Individuality No two apartments are alike. The 20 doubleheight living rooms result in different floor plans. The entrance space is a twostorey patio accessible to the inhabitants only.

Sustainability The outer space inside, the loggias, the volumes and trees atop create intermediate temperature zones protecting from overheating. Due to the solstice the popping-out header bricks and the metal-grille balconies function as solar protection in the summer but don't prevent from heating in winter. The garage is naturally ventilated.