Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Maribor | Styria Arhitektura d.o.o.

The task of changing the purpose of the use of space and the related existing building substances is classified among the most creative and responsible challenges in architecture. The dissonance between the existing and the new spatial programme and the related technology makes the dogma on designing and basic principles of planning disappear. The extension in the northern part of the castle Hompos is expressed quite differently: the castle is a completely different interpretation of an architectural intervention since – as a hybrid of the landscape and architecture, i.e. in opposition to the monumentality of the castle – it searches a direct contact with nature and intertwining into environment. In the shape of a cut-out landscape carpet a green meadow becomes a roof while the landscape replaces its topographic profile and is transformed into the plane of a green roof. The façade as a vertical ground profile is interrupted by large glass surfaces which establish the contact of the interior with the exterior nature. The extension facility in transparency and subordinate proportions with regard to the castle in the central part is stratified by a light gap. The facility is placed in space in such a manner that at an appropriate distance from the existing castle it forms a platform through the facade breaks – the square below the bell tower which is supplemented by a water motive, an open air classroom and micro-urban equipment. The placement of the new facility with the eastern portal creates a communication axis which matches the axis of the castle tower as the most remarkable architectural emphasis and combines all three entrances to the castle facility. Over an entire millennium, the Hompos Castle has lost touch with its original roots owing to numerous historical reconstructions. The building clearly demonstrates the fact that its owners very frequently changed its purpose; consequently almost no architectural motive was left in the castle such as decorative wall paintings, frescoes, stucco works or other rustic works. Its heritage is substantially richer as far as the style-related diversity of the »skeleton of the building« is concerned; this diversity can be noticed from the presentations of the facade treatment, details and materials. In planning strategy we intertwine two principles of designing strategies within which the old and the new form a mutual expression at different historical levels. The first principle of design is the structuring of the time-, contents- and character-related components of the building on the basis of the knowledge available in the fields of archaeology, preservation, architecture and history. The primary starting point is the presentation of the Dvor’s (the Mansion’s) historical image where the basic perception of aesthetics and qualitative criterion of its occurrence derive from. The second principle of design is the presentation of the castle facility as a whole. The optimisation of the programme and functional expectations of the user is the starting point connected with the technology of use and with the observation of the regulations in effect in the field of the construction.