When KWK promissory note asked to submit a concept for a house in Vilnius, Lithuania, the parameters might have sounded like an architect’s dream: Here was a private client who selected a firm through a competition to envision a house on a generous suburban footprint.
“This is an area characterized by relaxed, traditional development, with houses and cottages nestled among trees and extensive recreational areas,” the company explains. “On the plot included in the competition, as well as in its surroundings, there were once wooden houses of the Interwar period, which have not been saved to this day.
Based in Katowice, Poland and led by Robert Konieczny, KWK Promes is an innovative company known internationally for its bold residential and cultural projects. So it is no surprise that he was chosen to design the house in Vilnius.
His idea was simple: By raising part of the house one level up, the patio space is doubled, bringing daylight deep into the spaces inside. The living room, with the common areas, would be on the ground floor and the bedrooms above. A simple but effective design.
Then, in 2017, the space was halved just before the architects started construction: The Lithuanian Union of Farmers and Greens came to power and reduced the permitted building footprint by 50%. Instead of bailing out – and following the client’s instinct to start looking for a new location – KWK Promes convinced the owner to stay and reduce the home’s footprint by 40 percent. “As a result, a triangular floor plan emerged.”
While most architects will tell you they need constraints to conceive, this was above and beyond. The company essentially cut the house in half—its diagram shows how the final form came about—and made it better. Tighter geometries created dynamic, idiosyncratic conditions in a home that now measures 3,230 square feet.
Instead of a double atrium, the house now wraps its two levels around an interior courtyard. The building is a composite of concrete and glass, with its sharp angles – the most dramatic being a flat iron riser – complemented by the curved curtain wall of the atrium volume. The interior (by Yes. Design Architecture) features a sculptural spiral staircase as a focal point against minimal furniture and neutral finishes — except for the kitchen’s ostentatiously marble island.
Completed in 2025, Trim House shows how innovative thinking can overcome the steepest obstacles and that smaller is sometimes better.
To see this and other works by the company, visit kwkpromes.pl.
Photos from Jakub Sertowicz and Juliusz Sokołowski.
