They create dream homes… in Bulgaria
About 35 km from Sofia, near the Samokovo village of Gorni Okol, houses are slowly starting to spring up. They are not ordinary – they impress with a general modern and technological vision, they have a magnificent view of several mountains and the Iskar dam, and they are the work of a common team of talented architects and designers.
These are the houses according to an individual project in OKOL Lake Park – a new type of settlement surrounded by nature, which is being built by “Markan Holding” AD through its company “Golf Okol” EAD.
The place where, in the words of Ivan Vasilev, the project’s chief architect, the company offers not just houses or plots in a ready-made complex, but a complete “living environment”. This request for something more than what is known on the market goes with a very different approach to customers – “Golf Okol” EAD offers design in all parts and construction of houses according to an individual project in OKOL Lake Park.
The kit is for the buyer to be maximally facilitated – from the beginning to the end communicator with the company’s specialists (without looking for others), and they regularly consult him to specify the necessary needs and his budget on the way to the realization of the dream of a new home.
Realization of the dream, not the transformation into a nightmare
The approach in OKOL Lake Park is in stark contrast to the usual buying of a house.
Owning one is indeed one of the most common dreams wherever you are in the world. however, every realization of this dream turned it into a nightmare.
In the mass case, one starts with the search for a plot of land and communicating with brokers. Next, you need an architect. If he’s lucky, he finds every team to design every aspect of the house. If not, I have to coordinate my abilities involved in the process.
Then it has to be found and built, and only then does one realize how much their dream home will cost…without the interior. Finally, it may appear that the interior designer will have to tear down the walls of the built house to meet the needs and ideas of the owner, at which level the project has not been completely “cleared”.
Let’s not forget that along the route there is also a lawyer who moves all the documentation, and in addition, it is necessary to communicate with various institutions.
What is different about OKOL Lake Park? The fact that the service is all inclusive – from the plot to the design and construction, everything is done by the team of “Golf Okol” EAD.
“The team does not include specialists who can answer every part of every design, construction, as well as after and maintenance,” says Diana Kanazireva, Director of Project Development, Marketing and Sales of OKOL Lake Park.
“The product we offer is as user-oriented and user friendly as possible,” adds chief architect Ivan Vasilev. “Everything is done in the most convenient way for the client, so that he, coming to our office, receives the service completely and entirely here, on the spot, each of the necessary specialists establish contact with him and do his part of the work. “
Ivan Vassilev, chief architect of OKOL Lake Park
A house tailored to the needs of its future owner
Everything starts with a meeting of the potential client with the team of “Golf Okol” EAD, at which the client shows what he represents.
After that, there is always a visit near the village of Gorni Okol, where OKOL Lake Park is currently being built, so that customers can get a real idea of the place. Some people immediately choose the plot for their future home, but for most, a selection of plots is made.
Next is a meeting with the chief architect – i.e. Ivan Vasilev. During the meeting, a 3D model of the entire cluster of plots is used to make it clear whether what the client envisions as a home is suitable for their chosen location.
Already on the three-dimensional model, with relatively high accuracy, you can see how the surrounding houses will be located when they are finished, and what their participation is in the panorama. This way, every prospective owner gets an idea of what their view will be like when they stand on their porch one day.
“We are very careful not to mislead clients that what you see at the moment from a specific place where there are no ready-made properties, everything will be like that in the future,” Diana Kanazireva points out.
In this meeting, in the form of a discussion, Ivan and his team get to know in detail the client’s wishes for the functions and often the vision of his future house, and then explain to him what can (and cannot) happen.
A modern home in the middle of nature
All houses in OKOL Lake Park are subordinated to a common modern and technological style line.
The vision is chosen to meet the priorities of the people who will choose to live there. Undisputed priority is the view of the lake, and also as little as possible of the exterior in the interior space – i.e. when you are in the living room for example, the natural environment should actively show around you. This is possible by applying a maximally glazed facade, providing a wide visual front.
In this sense, the homes that are being built and will be built in OKOL Lake Park are extroverted houses that bring nature inside. some and quite literally – there are those with holes in them, atriums and courtyards.
Each house has a flat landscaped roof, which also serves as a fifth facade. Thus, if a person looks out from his porch, he will not see the gray roof of the neighbor living on a lower level, but a green area, organically fitting in the middle.
The architecture of the houses is functional and comfortable, and the general style ensures that you don’t end up with an unattractive chaos of styles and colors that can be seen in big cities.
In other words, a house in “Koprivshten style” or a castle from the 18th century has no place in OKOL Lake Park.
“There is a lot of freedom in which the client can fit in and make decisions, but we have thick red lines that we do not cross,” Kanazireva points out.
Step by step and hand in hand with the future owner
After it is clear what is offered by “Golf Okol” EAD and what functionality the client expects from his future home, the design of a volume-spatial solution (OP) begins, i.e. three-dimensional conceptual model of the building and its adjacent spaces.
A few days (or weeks, depending on the complexity) later, the client sees the model, and on this basis, in a series of meetings, the conceptual design is commented, refined and refined.
Several important points are clarified in the ODA: geometry and vision of the house; the proposals for materials and facade grids; contact of the house with the environment – what will the yard look like, what is the contact with the street, etc. (subsequently all this is finalized at the technical project stage).
In the idea phase of the design, an exemplary functional arrangement is also made – what will be the position of the furniture and what will be their dimensions. For example, what would the bathroom look like – where would the cubicle be, where would the cupboards be, etc.
The future resident of OKOL Lake Park, after choosing and booking a plot, receives an indicative offer, and even the next first projects for projects already have a very accurate sustainability of their future home. At this time, he has a very good idea of how his house will look and how it will fit into the environment.
Here comes another big difference – even after the completion of the OPR, interior design begins with the help of the designers at “Markan Design Studio” Ltd. (we will tell you more about them separately).
After the ODA is approved, the project for a given house is taken over by the so-called operational architects in the team (architects in the “Technical Design” phase) who lead the process until the issuance of a building permit.
“Our goal is to move the idea of the home from concept, function and vision – into a real working mechanism,” says architect Alexandra Minkova. The task of her and her colleagues is to design the house in the technical phase. Simultaneously with the work on the project in the Architecture part, the operational architects are responsible for the coordination of the other features that have installations and facilities in the building – structures, HVAC, electrical and plumbing.
arch. Alexandra Minkova
Coordination is absolute and in real time, because a BIM (Building Information Model) program is used, on which all projects work simultaneously. Every day you can see who has changed what without having to say every single thing.
“One modern house it is not just architectural drawings that are spread over several sheets. It is a complex complex organism and the last thing that should happen is a loss of information along the way,” says Ivan.
Beautiful facades at good prices
Already from the ROP (volumetric-spatial decision, remember?) it is decided what the material of the facade will be and how the individual elements will be arranged on it, because although the style of the houses is general, there are many options for the vision of each concrete home.
The OKOL Lake Park team offers a rather rich palette of specific materials for the client to combine.
Granite tiles and HPL (highly pressed laminate) are used as the main material. They come from several leading manufacturers and there’s a serious variety, from a “quite simple” and textured look to something more heavily textured and resembling stone, wood, some scratched metals, and more.
Aluminum composite is also used, and some more complex details are built with metal profiles or perforated boards with the corresponding print or applied paint.
“Along with our work as architects, the interior also progresses in its work, at one point we coordinate the vision inside with the vision outside,” Alexandra gives an example of how the collaboration of architects and interior designers and the client’s opinion at each stage can lead to more better ideas.
Thanks to the careful pre-selection of the partners and factories with which “Golf Okol” EAD works in OKOL Lake Park, all the materials used are of medium to high class and at prices that would not be possible for a single house.
A green home that fits in the environment
On the territory of OKOL Lake Park there will be a property company that will manage the streets, parks and green areas. Moreover, everywhere the vegetation is chosen to be maximally sustainable and adaptable to the climate – a simultaneously simple and expedient approach.
For green roofs, for example, those species are chosen whose water needs will be met by the rains in the region. Similar plants are also used for the green slopes – the inclined planes, with which the unevenness between the individual plots is overcome and the terracing is built within a specific plot.
The idea is always that the houses dominate as an image, although sometimes it is the elements of the landscape that have the task of breaking the pure geometry of minimalism in them.
The role of Lyuba Likova, the landscape architect of the project, is important here. When designing each home, she meets with a team of architects and with the client to achieve that environment around the house, which is as much as possible in accordance with the visions of the future owner and with the general concept of the whole place.
“Landscaping harmoniously combines modern and natural landscape. To successfully connect the correct geometric forms, better than architecture, and the vegetation developed in natural landscape forms, to make a connection between natural and technological form,” explains Luba.
Lyuba Likova, landscape architect of the project
Time to make the dream come true
Such an approach – synchronization between individual units in the process of regularly consulting the client, up to his requests and budget, sounds great, but it can also be time-consuming.
On the contrary, the process of building houses in OKOL Lake Park it takes an average of 2 years from the first meeting of a client with a team to the completion of construction.
A particularly important factor, of course, is how committed a homeowner is to the process. There are “more decisive” customers who do not hesitate much about one thing or another, and this allows for even faster completion.
At the end of the day, the result is a dream home created without the owner having to go through the ultimate house building nightmare. A dream home both outside and inside…but we’ll tell you about the interior next time.