Villányi 11-13.

On Villányi Road, the developer announced an open architectural design competition for the site of the Cistercian Saint Imre Church, which had formerly served as the site of a party headquarters, a training centre, and later a dormitory. This in itself was unusual, as market developers generally select designers through invited competitions or direct commissions. The task was to accommodate a residential development exceeding the volume of the existing building, in line with the possibilities offered by the regulatory plan.
Upon closer examination, we found that the existing building on the site, designed by István Balogh, represents a quality far above the general architectural and technical standards of the early 1970s. Its massing, using the church as an axis of symmetry, created a balanced streetscape together with the Saint Imre Secondary School, while its internal spatial arrangement, details and use of materials are also of an exceptionally high standard.
Therefore, from among the many possible options considered, we chose a solution in which we preserved and renovated the existing building, placing two additional, taller residential wings behind it, as a kind of background. Of the more than 30 entries submitted to the competition, ours was selected as the winning design; this is the project we are now presenting.