A new gallery draws visitors' attention with its dark, bold and extroverted outer skin, comprised of more than 900 black plastic seats. Named Gallery of Furniture, the new showroom -designed by CHYBIK+KRISTOF - may truly be considered one of the most impressive sustainable projects, are carefully transformed from a former car showroom into MY DVA Group's production office.

The new furniture showroom, occupying the 550 square meters area on site, is located on the outskirts of a housing estate in Brno-Vinohrady, Czech Republic. The studio concerted a single-storey building of a poor aesthetic quality 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,'' said the architects.

''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The former building was technically and morally outdated and from the formal point of view, it did not correspond with the needs of the society.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: ''Do it cheap, ideally for free," architects Ondrej Chybik and Michal Kristof are reminiscing.

The studio focused 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," aded the architects.

The architects cladded the building with a homogenous product, a plastic black seat for about 80 CZK/1 piece, without any greater adjustments of the exterior. The building now creates an abstract texture which reflects what is going on inside without another banner advertising. 

"What 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," the architects described. 

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 interior of the building consists of showroom and offices with a background for the employers. Indeed, the interior spaces were demolished, as described the architects. 

The studio created a presentation space for the showroom 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.

Floor plan

Scheme of functions

Exploded 3D axonometric diagram of spaces

West elevation

Project facts

Architect: CHYBIK+KRISTOF

Client: MY DVA group a.s.

Location: Brno-Vinohrady, Czech Republic

Year: 2015-2016 

Program: showroom and offices for furniture company

Size: 550 m2 

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

All images © Lukas Pelech

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