Gallery of furniture

Project idea

Cheap and original reconstruction of old object from 90's, showroom of furniture company whose facade serves as an advertising to itself:

The existing building from the 1990s, didn’t fit – technically and formal - its function: to represent the contemporary modern furniture producer. Thanks to the exterior modifications, the object has been given a new, clearly legible and memorable face, which is made of chairs produced by the company.
The interior is designed as a flexible open space, which can be partitioned by sliding curtains to semi-open or completely enclosed spaces. Each of it can use the different lighting atmosphere and uses different materials, so it creates thematically different environments: school, office space or exhibition space.

Project description

Façade as a functional banner
The transformation of a former car show room on the outskirts of a housing estate into a site of the MY DVA group, focusing on the production of office, school and metal furniture, represents another finished structure of the young architecture firm CHYBIK + KRISTOF Architects & Urban Designers from Brno. The single-storey building of a poor aesthetic quality turned into a building with a new, easily remembered façade composed of more than 900 black plastic seats. The façade is conceived abstractly, functioning also as a banner advert for the firm itself. After finishing a simple refurbishment of its interior, a new flexible showroom was created presenting the individual segments of the firm´s production in specific, thematically arranged settings.

Vinohrady is the name of one of the oldest housing estates built in Brno in the first half of the 1980s. The car show room itself was set up in the 1990s and is a part of a line of nearby commercial buildings, bordering with the four-lane Zarosicka road, which, however, do not enhance the area anyhow. The former state of the building was technically and morally outdated and from the formal point of view, it did not correspond with the needs of the society. Given the fact that it was a temporary investment in the form of a rent and the firm had already been using those premises, the proposed solution had to be cheap and fast. The task was: ˮDo it cheap, ideally for free,ˮ architects Ondrej Chybik and Michal Kristof are reminiscing.

The MY DVA group belongs to the front domestic suppliers of office, school and metal furniture, focusing also on the concepts and realizations of commercial and educational interiors, including some atypical elements. The choice of material, which should have been based on the usage of a minimum amount of money, but with a maximum effect to enhance the former building, therefore, had to be connected with the firm´s production. Thus, the building is cladded by a homogenous product, a plastic black seat for about 80 CZK/1 piece, without any greater adjustments of the exterior. It creates an abstract texture which reflects what is going on inside without another banner advertising. ˮWhat we used is a basic form of an interior chair called Vicenza which the supplier delivers on a regular basis. In this case, however, we used black granulate for the outdoors because it is resistant to different weather conditions, especially UV light.ˮ the architects are describing. The individual seats are fixed on a structure made from steel sections fixed on the façade. In case of a mechanical damage, it is possible to change each piece for a new one, even the façade cleaning can be done easily once or twice a year by a high-pressure cleaner.

The concept of the interior represents the second level of the project and consists of two parts: a showroom and offices with a background for the employers. The inside of the building was demolished. A presentation space of the showroom was created by enlarging the former entrance hall at the centre of the layout and is demarcated by polycarbonate partitions. The floor is unified by means of white screed, on the ceiling remain former fair faced concrete panels and all the new wirings are exposed. Three circular galleries are embedded into this newly created space, representing three different segments of production – school furniture, office furniture and design pieces. The circular cutouts are demarcated by white textile curtains for the full height of the space, they can be closed or let open. Interiors of the cutouts represent three different settings where the flooring material, means of lighting and the colour of the light itself are aimed to correspond with a natural setting that the furniture is intended for. The interstices can be filled with various products or pieces of art, they can be used as a common room for the employees or for get-togethers with clients. The whole space works on the principle of a gallery which can be easily adjusted according to the actual needs.

Offices for the employees are preserved along the perimeter of the structure, they are illuminated by daylight, have a ventilation and are unified by a grey carpet and white paint.

Technical information

Client: MY DVA group a.s.
Location: Brno-Vinohrady, Czech Republic
Year: 2015-2016
Program: showroom and offices for furniture company
Size: 550 m2
Floor area: 489 m2
Working space without showroom: 104 m2
Status: completed

Co-authors

Team: Ondrej Chybik, Michal Kristof, Victor Cojocaru, Martin Holy, Vojtech Kouril, Sarka Kubinova, Ondrej Mundl, Matej Strba
Photographer: Lukas Pelech