The Blue Studio of ječmen studio is located in the suburb of Olomouc – in Chválkovice.
My grandparents’ house stands in the street front; next to it is a gap that leads into the courtyard. The gap is the width of a family house, bordered by the blind gable of the neighbor and our full gable, which later had a window added into the living room. The elevated space was partially paved but mostly green, with perennial flower beds.

Out of a need to manifest our architectural sensibility and to give form to a decade of exhausting practice in Olomouc, my colleague – and wife – and I decided to begin building the studio ourselves.

With a romantic belief in recycling beautiful casement windows rescued from the Masaryk Elementary School in Zábřeh (1938) by Hradec architect Lyska, we began construction three years ago. Symbolically, it was this very project that brought us back to the region.

The building preserves the gap, narrowing it. The gap ends with a well and a pump. This area is publicly accessible during the day and acts as a bay of the street. The sliding gate disappears into a recess in the building.

The tall order of original casement windows across two floors, with a shed roof of variable overhang, is the main compositional principle. The windows are on display: 12 four-part windows with 96 sashes. They face three directions, with the main façade oriented north into the passage. It creates an environment conducive to good architectural work.

New elements – the entrance door and a display window facing the street – have rounded, clearly contemporary shapes, reminiscent of a train car. The floor plan measures 10.465 × 3.385 meters. The window size and the width of the vertical fire strip (toward the neighboring building) define the building’s width. The length corresponds roughly to the depth of the gap, divisible by the window format.

After the snow cleared and the foundations were laid, we built a conventional concrete slab based on Vítězslav’s plans, a masonry “U” along the neighboring gable, and a timber structure to install the windows. The ceiling above the ground floor is a concrete slab. The façade surfaces outside the windows are made of 10 mm cement-bonded particle boards on a frame with insulation. The variable overhang of the shed roof with hips allows for a consistent eaves detail, sloped accordingly.

We reveal the structure and materials, the beauty of tectonic construction processes, and the ornamentation of only what is necessary. Plus, we recycle. The reused elements come from our own archive: windows from the ZUŠ Zábřeh, parquet flooring and radiators from the Sochor Barracks, mirrored stainless steel sheets from our abandoned studio, chairs from my grandmother’s living room, lights from scrap. The new metal staircase, 550 mm wide, echoes like a steamboat. The new furniture is basic, made from raw particle board. The joints of ceramic blocks are plastered, and the walls are painted with façade paint. The ceiling remains exposed concrete after formwork removal.

The dark blue color RAL 5013 – night blue – was chosen to embody the invisibility of the house. The authors’ desire for a colorful building is a reaction against black-and-gray clichés.

Before completion, the building was masked and, without window sashes, sprayed inside and out with a final layer of glossy lacquer – as if it were a machine.

Large windows ensure direct contact with blooming perennials along the main façade. The opposite gable is covered in climbing plants, and newly planted ornamental trees on the street continue the greenery of the courtyard.

The studio has six workstations connected to the internet.
In Olomouc, Eva and Lukáš Blažek – founding members of ječmen studio – on the 10th anniversary of its founding.

ječmen studio

Refuge House

SVAT primary school

Public Summer Garden

Telegraph

Pavilon H

Cemetery in the field

Ječmen studio

FANA café

OUSHI

Kraličák

Parking house

Football bleachers

Funeral Hall

Osvobození square

Façade redesign

Museum of Olomouc cheese

Dřevotrust

UP Point