Construction Diary

Jan Vondrák, Marie Vondráková and Life Itself 2024+

How many times do I have to repeat that building a house while expecting, or with a tiny baby, is stressful? Why do I have to keep telling you over and over that you won't be living there by Christmas? Yes, it happened—Villa Dorka has a new client. Her name is Ada, and she'll have a room with a nautical window. Naturally, we'll be moving in by Christmas. And if that doesn't work out? Well, we won't lose our minds over it!

31.07.2024, Jan

The folks at Nema have manufactured our timber structure, which traveled all the way from South Bohemia and is growing even faster than Ada. Heavy trucks take turns next to the foundation slab, with a crane gradually lowering individual structural panels into place. As soon as the rough structure is done, we'll keep pushing forward. Stay tuned—and don't start packing for Christmas just yet...

10.05.2024, Marie

What to do with it? The plot we're building our house on is quite small and steep. At the lower end stands a defunct transformer station; it holds no historical value and sits rather illogically on the lot, angled like a tossed giant sugar cube. That’s why our initial thought was to tear it down. However, its fate doesn't look quite as tragic now as it did at first.

Friends often used to ask us what it's like when two architects design their own house. We had the house figured out in no time. We quickly identified the motifs from places we love. We know very well what we need, and more importantly, what we don't. But the old transformer station was a cliffhanger. This little white cube has massive concrete foundations and sound brick load-bearing walls, so demolishing it would be both pointless and expensive. We ran through every scenario—from demolition, to turning it into a rentable tiny house, a bike and ski storage space, a future granny flat for our parents, right down to living in the station ourselves while the new house is being built.

We have everything drawn up on paper and carefully tested different scenarios. That's probably the most demanding and fun part of designing your own home: opening up the palette of your future life, while trying not to get overly attached to anything. In the meantime, we've developed a soft spot for the transformer station. It's like a tick on our miniature schnauzer Dorka’s fur—a tick we've grown fond of.

So, we're fixing it up! My dad is taking it the hardest; he’d much rather blow the tick up with dynamite and build something "more solid" and, above all, not so crooked on the remaining space. But we like it this way. Architects prefer solving a problem over eliminating it. It's the right way to go—economic, ecological, and logical.

The transformer station will serve as a workspace and a spot for any guests who don't feel like heading home after dinner at Villa Dorka. It will be accessible through a large French window. On the wall, we'll hang one of the paintings we got from friends for our wedding, or my Bianchi road bike—after all, it's much better to look at than to ride. The facade will be made of charred wood, and on the roof, accessible via a narrow walkway, we'll plant a little garden reached from the upper lawn level. Whether it ends up with herbs or redcurrants, I'm really looking forward to it. So I just hope that in time my dad comes around to liking the transformer station too, and that we won't have to fear finding a smoldering pile of rubble every time we return home.

01.05.2024, Jan

"Captain's log, stardate 01052024: We are preparing to separate the saucer section so that the families and most of the crew remain in relative safety, while the battle bridge with basic armament returns to face the mystery that threatens us."

Leaves are already budding on the trees and the morning birds are squawking loud enough to drown out Laco Deczi practicing his trumpet embouchure. Meanwhile, the foundations have sprouted on the lot.
As soon as the mixer truck drops off a few cubic meters of concrete for the main slab, the timber structure in Olešná, South Bohemia, will be ready to go. The sewage system is already routed beneath the slab, with water and electricity pulled through the strip footings. In recent days, we've been finalizing the production details to ensure all ABB sockets and switches are in the right spots. Exposed CLT panel construction is unforgiving. It won't let you leave things for later, because socket positions are milled directly into the panels back at the factory. So, double check everything and off to production we go!
The slab gets poured this week, and in the second half of May, we'll have photos with the crane and timber panels. I'm super excited, but a bit anxious too. It's great therapy. I wake up in the middle of the night repeating to myself: "Everything is going to be O.K."

27.03.2024, Jan

After several months, we finally got our building permit, and digging started the very same day. If you have backfill on your lot, the foundations need to reach the virgin soil underneath. When your backfill is three meters deep, you have to dig damn deep to get there. So our plot currently looks like a copper mine somewhere in northern Mongolia. Luckily, the backfill is mostly weathered rock, so digging isn't too bad. The real trouble comes from granite boulders that have to be extracted, leaving behind huge craters in the trench. A small, steep plot isn't exactly ideal for construction logistics, and poor Aleš from 1ku1 is on site three times a day to resolve every issue on the fly. Meanwhile, Nema is finalizing the structural drawings so the timber frame can go into production. Full steam ahead!

“Just stay patient. That’s all.” Kobe Bryant, American professional basketball player

13.03.2024, Jan

This is the first entry of our construction diary. The diary will guide you through the build of one small house named after Dorka—a spoiled, but adorable schnauzer. Villa Dorka will be small and cute, just like my mom's dog.

There isn't much to see on site yet, but things are moving fast behind the scenes. Last week we drove to Valašské Příkazy to check out the windows manufactured by Janošík. Jakub and I were brainstorming how to make the windows as stunning as possible. As Kuba puts it: "They gotta click!"

Birch trees are already sprouting on the lot, as if they want to be right there when the excavator bites into the ground. As soon as the building permit comes into legal force, we'll dive headfirst into this grand adventure.