Kropka Studio and Klub Architekci Wrap a Kraków Family House Around a Slatted Timber Courtyard

Suburban plots on the fringe of Polish cities rarely give architects much to work with. Lots are tight, the neighbours sit close, and the next round of development is always arriving. City House, a 330 m² family home on the outskirts of Kraków by Kropka Studio and Klub Architekci, led by Gosia Łapaj and Kuba Kowalczyk, sits in exactly this kind of dense single-family neighbourhood. It also has one real asset: a long view over the hills of the Bielańsko-Tyniecki Landscape Park.

The project is interesting because it handles those two conditions with one device. A skin of vertical timber battens wraps the house, closing it against the street and the neighbours while opening it toward the landscape. A semi-open courtyard terrace is cut into the plan. The rest of the design follows from that layer, including a concrete base anchored in rocky ground and a dark gabled roof that nods to the houses next door.

A Familiar Silhouette on a Crowded Street

From the street, City House does not try to stand out from its neighbours. The gabled profile, finished in dark-grey ceramic tiles, picks up the roofline of the house next door. A black vertical-bar fence and a concrete gate wall set the boundary in the same vertical rhythm as the cladding. We think this restraint is the right call. In a neighbourhood where every plot will eventually be built on, a house that fits the existing typology ages better than one that shouts.

The departure from convention shows in the details. The upper volume reads as a single dark mass with almost no visible openings. A glazed corner faces the meadow, and the timber base wraps the ground floor in a continuous screen rather than a wall punched with windows. The gable form is familiar, but the way it is used is not.

Timber Battens as Filter, Not Finish

Up close, the battens are plainly ordinary wood, with knots, grain and slight colour variation that will drift toward silver over time. What matters is the spacing. Where the slats run tight, the facade works as a wall. Where they open up, as at the edge of the close-up in raking sunlight, the screen becomes porous. It lets light and air through while blocking direct sightlines.

This openwork system also hides the entrance path, so you approach the door without being on display to the street. Against the black rendered upper level, the timber reads as the softer, more tactile body of the house. A narrow glazed slot in the dark volume shows how carefully the architects rationed views on the public sides.

The Courtyard Terrace as the Real Living Room

The courtyard terrace is the core of the house. It is L-shaped and semi-open, and it connects directly to the living room, dining area and kitchen through full-height sliding glass doors. A single tree rises from a planted square in the timber deck, so the space feels like an inhabited garden rather than a balcony attached to the plan.

The enclosure is adjustable. On the south side, an openwork folding wall lets the family tune how much of the terrace is exposed. On the west, a steel lattice clad in timber frames the edge and casts long parallel shadows across the boards through the day. The overhead slats work like a pergola, turning direct sun into a moving pattern. For a young family, this gives an outdoor room that stays private without walls.

Opening Up to the Garden and the Hills

The garden facades show the other half of the strategy. The side wall, clad in weathered vertical boards, carries deep-set tall windows that frame the lawn and the autumn trees without exposing the interior. At the rear, the glazed terrace and slatted screen face the grass beds and open view, and here the house is at its most generous.

The contrast between street side and garden side is the clearest reading of the brief. The house gives very little to the public realm and a great deal to the landscape. It does this with the same material throughout, so it never looks like two different buildings.

From Rocky Ground to a Bath with a View

The house is organised over three levels. The lowest, set into rocky terrain, holds a two-car garage and technical rooms built in raw architectural concrete. That concrete extends outward as retaining walls. A black steel stair climbs past a rubble stone bank beneath the slatted volume, which makes the change in ground level visible instead of hiding it behind landscaping.

The ground floor holds the open day zone. The first floor is reserved for three bedrooms and a compact terrace. A freestanding bathtub set against corner windows looks out over the meadow and distant hills. After all the screening below, this is where the house finally turns the view into something private and personal.

Why This Project Matters

Most suburban houses solve privacy by adding things: hedges, frosted glass, higher fences. Kropka Studio and Klub Architekci solve it with the architecture itself. One timber layer controls light, sightlines, entry and outdoor space at once, and the courtyard terrace gives a tight plot a protected garden that a conventional detached layout could not.

It also offers a useful lesson in working with context. The gabled roof and dark tiles let the house sit comfortably among its neighbours, while the battens, concrete plinth and carved-out courtyard push the type somewhere new. For anyone designing on the dense edges of European cities, City House shows that you can fit in and still make a strong spatial argument.

City House, Kraków, Poland. Architects: Kropka Studio and Klub Architekci (lead architects Gosia Łapaj and Kuba Kowalczyk). Area: 330 m². Year: 2022. Photography: Maciej Lulko.

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Klub Architekci

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