Urban Infill Residential Architecture: Designing Homes in Historic Town Centers

Building a new home within a historic town center presents challenges that suburban greenfield sites do not. Narrow streets, adjacent buildings, constrained lot sizes, and the visual expectations of a historic context all shape the design process. The Kozina House project in Trhove Sviny, Czech Republic demonstrates how connecting two neighboring houses created a 288-square-meter residential building that fits seamlessly into its historic surroundings. The project achieved a built-up area of 340 square meters with a gross floor area of 317 square meters on a constrained urban site. The design team, Atelier 111 architekti, approached the project with a contextual strategy that respects the existing urban fabric while meeting contemporary residential needs. Tilt-up concrete panel forms represent one industrial-scale approach to wall construction, but urban infill projects typically rely on more traditional masonry and framed systems that match the surrounding building vernacular.

Contextual Design in Historic Urban Settings

Atelier 111 architekti characterizes its architecture by contextual approach, conceptual thinking, and sobriety. For the Kozina House, contextual design meant responding to the narrow, sleepy streets adjacent to the grassy Kozina Square, where the building stands hidden from surrounding traffic yet only steps from the town center with its shops, services, schools, and railway station. The project demonstrates how urban infill can provide the conveniences of town living without the sprawl of suburban villa developments that the designers noted sometimes disproportionately cut out of the landscape. The modern barnhouse vision demonstrated in showcase homes offers a counterpoint to urban infill, showing how rural residential design approaches the same issue of context from the opposite direction.

Analyzing the Urban Context

Before designing the Kozina House, the architects studied the existing urban fabric of Trhove Sviny. Key observations included:

• Building heights in the historic core range from two to three stories, with roof profiles that step and vary rather than following a uniform cornice line
• Street widths are narrow, typically 6 to 10 meters, limiting construction access and requiring careful logistics planning
• Adjacent buildings share party walls, making the structural connection between the two neighboring houses a natural extension of the existing urban pattern
• Material palettes in the district favor stone masonry, plastered facades, clay roof tiles, and timber window frames
• Setback patterns vary, with some buildings meeting the sidewalk directly and others maintaining small front gardens

Building Height and Massing Studies

The Kozina House massing respects the height and proportion of surrounding buildings while adding a contemporary interpretation of local roof forms. The building does not exceed the ridge height of its neighbors, and the roof pitch matches the prevailing angle in the district. This approach allows the new structure to read as a natural part of the streetscape rather than a foreign insertion. Massing studies compared three options: a single unified volume, two linked pavilions, and the selected approach of connecting two neighboring houses with an infill link.

Spatial Planning for Connected Dwellings

The Kozina House was created by connecting two neighboring houses into a single residence. This approach maintained the street-facing facades of both original structures while creating a unified interior. The ground floor contains the main entrance finished in concrete and stone masonry, a sufficiently large living room with an adjoining outdoor terrace, and the kitchen and dining area featuring an arched ceiling. The first floor houses bedrooms, each with custom-made walls and ceilings, and the attic contains childrens rooms and a playroom. The layout prioritizes daylight access, with the living and dining areas positioned to capture southern light through the courtyard-facing windows. Understanding window selection strategies for farmhouse renovations applies equally to urban infill projects, where the choice of window style, proportion, and operation type determines how the building relates to its streetscape.

Circulation and Flow Between Volumes

Connecting two previously separate houses requires careful attention to circulation. The design team placed the primary connection at ground level, where a new hallway links the living spaces of both original structures. Stairs in each original house remain in place, serving the bedrooms above and allowing flexible future subdivision if the property ever returns to two dwellings. Understairs bookcases with a large window facing the courtyard facade turn what could be wasted space into a functional reading nook, demonstrating how infill connections create opportunities for novel spatial experiences. The first floor bridge between the two volumes passes over the entrance hall, creating a double-height void that visually connects the ground and upper levels.

Structural Integration of Two Buildings

The structural connection between two neighboring houses required detailed engineering. Each original building had its own foundation system, wall construction, and lateral load path. The link between them needed to accommodate differential movement while providing a weathertight, thermally continuous connection. The solution involved a flexible expansion joint at the roof and foundation levels, with rigid connections at the intermediate floor levels where the structures could be tied together without creating stress concentrations. The new roof structure spans across both original buildings and the link, unifying the volumes under a single roof plane with the characteristic arched wooden ceiling. Foundation underpinning was required where the new connection bridged between the two existing foundation systems.

Material Selection for Urban Residential Projects

The Kozina House uses a restrained material palette. The main entrance combines concrete and stone masonry, establishing a solid, grounded presence at street level. Interior finishes include exposed wood in the vaulted ceiling, custom wall treatments in the bedrooms, and large glass windows that connect interior spaces to the courtyard. The skylit primary bathroom features a freestanding soaking tub, and the bathrooms throughout the house use materials chosen for durability in a family home. Showcase homes inspire real-world design by demonstrating how carefully selected materials and finishes can elevate ordinary residential spaces without requiring luxury budgets. The material choices in the Kozina House prioritize low maintenance and longevity, reflecting the owners long-term investment in the property.

Arched Ceilings and Vaulted Spaces

The wooden vaulted ceiling in the dining area and the arched ceiling in the kitchen are defining interior features of the Kozina House. These elements refer to traditional Czech construction techniques while using modern engineered wood components. The arched form provides structural efficiency, allowing the ceiling to span greater distances with less material than a flat roof of equivalent strength. The wood finish contributes to interior acoustics by scattering sound waves and reducing echo compared to hard plaster or concrete surfaces. The vault height also allows clerestory windows at the spring point of the arch, bringing additional daylight into the center of the floor plan. The carpentry work involved precision cutting of laminated timber ribs that were assembled on site and lifted into position using a mobile crane.

Light and Privacy in Dense Urban Settings

Building in a dense historic district means managing the competing demands of natural light access and visual privacy. The Kozina House addresses this through strategic window placement and courtyard orientation. The living room opens onto an outdoor terrace that shares light and space with the neighboring property, creating a semi-private outdoor living area. Large glass windows face the courtyard rather than the street, providing open views while maintaining privacy from passersby. The courtyard facade uses full-height glazing on the ground floor, while the upper floors use carefully positioned window openings that provide light without sacrificing privacy. The stepped window arrangement on the upper floors prevents direct sightlines between the house and its neighbors while maintaining daylight penetration.

Daylight Analysis and Window Strategy

In an urban infill site surrounded by neighboring buildings, daylight access is constrained. The design team conducted daylight factor analysis to optimize window sizes and positions. Key findings from the analysis included:

• The courtyard orientation provides 60 percent of the total daylight available to a fully exposed site with the same floor area
• Skylights in the primary bathroom and attic childrens rooms provide supplemental daylight where side windows are limited
• Cladding materials with higher light reflectance values on courtyard-facing walls increase reflected daylight entering interior spaces
• Interior finishes in light colors with reflectance values above 70 percent help distribute available daylight deeper into the floor plate

Outdoor Living and Courtyard Integration

The Kozina House shares an outdoor living area with the neighboring property, creating a communal space that expands the usable area of both homes without reducing the building footprint. The outdoor terrace adjoining the living room provides direct access to this shared garden, blurring the boundary between interior and exterior. The terrace is finished with stone pavers that match the entrance paving, creating visual continuity between the front and rear of the property. A canopy extends from the roof overhang to provide shelter for outdoor dining, allowing year-round use of the terrace in the South Bohemian climate where summers are warm but rainfall is frequent.

Landscape Planting Strategy

The shared courtyard uses a simple planting scheme that provides seasonal interest without blocking light to ground-floor windows. Deciduous trees along the property boundary offer summer shade while allowing winter sun penetration. Low shrubs and ground covers frame the terrace edges, and a gravel path connects the terrace to the garden gate. The planting strategy prioritizes native species adapted to the local climate, reducing irrigation requirements and supporting local biodiversity. Perennial plants with extended bloom periods provide color from spring through autumn with minimal maintenance intervention.

All building materials used in the renovation require quality verification before installation. Determination of specific gravity of hydraulic cement using the Le Chatelier flask method is one standard test that ensures cement used in masonry repairs and new concrete work meets specification requirements. Similarly, verifying the soundness of building lime by the Le Chatelier method confirms that lime-based mortars used in historic masonry restoration will not expand or crack after application, preserving the integrity of the building envelope. Quality control of these materials is especially important when working with existing structures where the new materials must be compatible with the original construction. The Kozina House project used lime-based mortar for all stone masonry repairs to maintain vapor permeability and prevent moisture trapping that would occur with cement-based mortars.