Architects: SKARDELLI György, TORDAY Krisztina
The architects of the village wanted to design a group of buildings with the atmosphere of a small town in the hills. Its layout, the relations of its spaces and structures convey the feeling of togetherness and interdependence, and it provides an ideal environment to bring up children who have lost their families.
Originally, the SOS Children’s Village was an institute established after World War II. to help orphaned children and widowed women in the German speaking countries. It has grown into an international organization (SOS Kinderdorf International), incorporating more than 300 villages worldwide. They advocate that children should grow up in family-like communities, living in family houses, surrounded by the affection and care of foster-mothers, with the help of the SOS Association. The children live in the village, but they go to school together with the other children of the local community. It is also important, that the little residents of the children’s village should live the same way, as far as possible, as the other children outside the village. The children’s village in Kőszeg, the third SOS establishment to be built in Hungary, has been designed according to these principles.
The children’s village has been built at the southwestern edge of the town, next to a housing estate consisting of five-storey houses, on a sloping terrain. The major functions are accommodated in different, small size buildings. The architectural concept of their concentrated layout reflects a kind of hierarchy evoking the spatial structure of a small town. There is a parking lot next to the entrance from direction of the town, from this point the streets and squares within the village have pedestrian traffic, only the ambulance and the fire engine can drive in. The public type of buildings, such as the administrative and community centre, a workshop for maintenance and handicraft activities, a kindergarten, the house for the assistant mothers and the house of the deputy head of the village are located on the top of the hill, surrounding a square with an elongated U-shape. The square has an important role in community life, it is a place for meeting, playing and open-air events. The 12 single-family houses with terraces are arranged in three units along the lower lying curved road which circles the village centre; the house of the village head is located among them. Each house has its own garden. Walkways between the house blocks lead to green areas located lower on the gentle slope, to the orchard, to the large playground built as a timber castle and to the handball-size sports court, which is used by villagers and “outsider” children alike. The small town scale brick buildings of the village have gable roofs, plastered and white painted facades and plain tile roofing on the timber roof structure.
Location: Kőszeg, Sigray Jakab utca 3. Built: 1993 Architects: SKARDELLI György, TORDAY Krisztina Interior architects: PLACHTOVICS Vilmos, MÁRKUS Gábor Landscape architect: HAVASSY Gabriella Area: 5000 m2
