Mykolas Svirskis ir Lina Bakienė
Ramybės namai Kaune (House of Peace in Kaunas)
Type: single-family home
Implementation: designed in 2015, constructed in 2018
Address: Varpo g. 8, Kaunas
Designers: Mykolas Svirskis, Lina Bakienė
Over a very short period of time, two young architects, Mykolas Svirskis (b. 1987) and Lina Bakienė (b. 1989), have demonstrated their talent for creating conceptual residential spaces and surprising interiors. Mykolas is everywhere: simultaneously organizing student workshops, experimenting with architectural objects to “populate” an uninhabited island, or creating dreamy waterside homes. Lina successfully participates in architectural competitions and workshops, creating laconic interior spaces she herself refers to as “soft”.
This house on Varpo Street was a three-year creative journey for the architects and their adventurous clients. Initially, the young family hoped to find someone to design the interior of their home prior to construction, since they felt they already had an idea for the structure itself. But they gradually had to go back to square one and, working together with Mykolas and Lina, they began shaping a vision of how their family life might look and then began exploring the spaces best suited for that life.
Gradually, a restrained yet bold home began to emerge on their land, surprising neighbours with its materials and uncomplicated form. As you approach the long, horizontal volume, you begin to feel the boundary between the structure, the surrounding land, and the interior details disappear. Everything is part of a single, organic narrative. Surfaces of unfinished ceramsite blocks fill the building’s facades and flow into the interior spaces, galvanized metal surrounds the plot and comes to settle onto the roof, while large wooden windows flood the building with sunlight. There is no room here for haphazard details, unnecessary information, or cheap imitations. This house seeks to be honest with itself and those around it, and its owners describe its style in one word: tranquillity.
The house on Varpo Street won an award for the best residential home in Kaunas in 2018, and in 2019 it was selected from a field of fifty emerging architectural projects vying for the ArchDaily & Strelka Award.
Photographer: Lukas Mykolaitis