Orangery at the manor house in Chtelnica

STU in Bratislava - Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Architecture

Project idea

The project idea was to renew the function of an orangery at the manor house in village Chtelnica. In the past, the orangery situated at the economic part of the manor house served as winter storage of the mobile plants. It was also used to grow tropical plants for the manor house usage. This function will be returned to the manor house and of top of that there will be built cafeteria. Outside of orangery the park will be crated for the free time activities inhabitants and visitors. Like this, the orangery provides citizens and general public with spaces for rest and recreation, in a building strongly connected with the surrounding nature. The surrounding landscaping provides greenery, relaxation areas as well as open spaces, which locals use for village activities like veterans meeting, evening music school, wine tasting, fair, balls and various other social events.

Project description

Chtelnica, a village located at the foot of the Little Carpathians, situated in the west of Slovakia, has many historically significant buildings, preserved to this day. One of the most important monuments in Chtelnica is a baroque manor house located in the younger historical center of the village. Right next to the manor house and its pavilions, at the level of the basements, there is a former economic part of the manor house. It is in this area that I propose the future building of the orangery, which is supposed to return the function of a winter storage of plants, add the missing cafeteria and, of course, will serve as an attraction for visitors not only from Slovakia. My design of the orangery includes complete analyses of the surrounding area and respects the surrounding buildings. In the analyses, I determined not only the urban, architectural, climatic conditions and solutions of the municipality, but also the requirements of the inhabitants themselves for their leisure activities. The main feature of the orangery is its organic shape, which is based on its natural purpose for growing plants. One of the conditions that I set when designing the orangery is the optical lightness of the object. The building, which with its optical weight does not overwhelm the dominant standing next to it, the manor house itself with four pavilions. I achieved the ease of construction of the orangery by using a glass facade, with covered load-bearing elements. In combination with the glass facade, I used wooden beams made of glued laminated wood as the main load-bearing element. Inside the building there is a free-standing building, which provides the interior of the orangery with its facilities for visitors as well as employees of the orangery or cafeteria. The surroundings of the orangery further include a free-standing building next to it, in the exterior, providing space for technological and economic facility of the orangery.

Technical information

The main load-bearing structure of the building consists of wooden beams made of glued laminated wood, covered with a glass facade made of bent glass panels made of steel frames anchored to the wooden beams.
Inside the orangery there is a self-standing building made of traditional burnt brick, which provides cafeteria and technical-economic facility. The floors in the building have a wooden finish. On the 1st floor, there will be a double floor structure, which will allow the immersion of non-movable flower pots for planting permanent greenery in the building.
The glass facade at the top of the roof structure ensures ventilation of the rooms by tilting window frames. There are windows for natural ventilation in the vertical part of the structure, instead of secondary and main entrances. The orangery will be heated by geothermal heat pump a ventilated by floor ventilation, which will provide the natural enviroment for people and the plants.