Location: Sela pri Ratežu, Slovenia

Client: private

Year: 2023 - built

Program: wellness, spa

Area: 110 m2

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​Architecture: Ognen Arsov, Ana Kosi, Žiga Rošer, Kaja Todorović

Conceptual collage: Sara Škarica

Photography: Ana Skobe

 

On a clearing surrounded by a forest lies a former mill, nowadays a tourist farm. The romantic, idyllic estate consists of five rustic buildings. A new facility with a spa program was added to one of them – the apartment house. 

 

The new spa is not designed as an object that integrates formally and stylistically with the existing farm buildings. It is designed as an underground space with its own logic and rules. At the entrance the visitor moves from a traditional rural environment to an introverted, abstract, purified space. A visit to the spa is intended for relaxation, rest and meditation. Retreating into a parallel "underground" world enables this leap not only on the physical but also the mental level. The spa connects with the "upper world" via two light wells and an outdoor terrace. These three elements are designed as wooden, abstract prisms that pierce the green hill between existing objects. The new object is only perceived in the "upper world" through the distortion of typical rural scenery created by wooden prisms.