Residence · Nagycsepely · 2022

A building group set on the contour

The architectural concept for the residence of a four-and-a-half-hectare estate in the hills behind Balaton's southern shore. Architect: András Toldi.

The brief

On a site this size the obvious answer is one large building. On sloping ground that has a cost: a large footprint either cuts into the hill or sits on a plinth, and both mean substantial earthworks and retaining walls. And on the hillside it reads as a block.

The estate offered something else. A gentle slope, mature trees, water visible above them.

The answer

The residence breaks into several linked gabled buildings, each sitting at its own level, following the contour. Earthworks stay minimal, retaining walls are barely needed, and the ridge lines repeat the fall of the hill.

The division also restores the order an estate naturally has: living wing, guest wing, outbuilding, and a separate house further up the slope — the way an old farmstead assembles. Lawn, hedges and gravel between them. The arriving visitor meets a group rather than a building, and gets a different view at every turn.

The gable is what ties it together. It repeats at the end of every wing: sometimes as solid stone wall, sometimes opened into a portal — the shape of the roof left empty, its inner face lined in timber. The same form is wall, doorway and covered terrace in turn.

Three materials throughout: split stone on the walls, timber in the soffits and openings, dark slate on the roofs. The white rendered surfaces appear where the gable becomes a frame, so the opening always reads lighter than the mass.

What it took

Across four and a half hectares the garden is not decoration but the thing holding the buildings together. The layout works around the existing trees; paths and hedges draw the internal courtyards. Here landscape was structural work rather than a closing layer — without it the buildings would come apart on the slope.

Data

Location: Nagycsepely, Somogy County, Hungary
Year: 2022
Type: Estate residence in several buildings
Site: 4.5 hectares
Architect: András Toldi
Our role: Architectural concept, visualisation
Status: Concept design

The inner courtyard: two gable portals in line, lined in timber, a covered terrace and glazed wall beneath them, a stone-walled outbuilding to the right, stone steps and hedges — The same form is wall, doorway and covered terrace in turn — towards the courtyard it opens as a portal.

Aerial view of the residence: the living wing and the colonnaded outbuilding enclose an inner courtyard, mature trees behind them and water above the trees — The wings enclose an inner courtyard; above the trees, the water.

The estate on the hillside: several linked gabled buildings, each at its own level, a separate house further up the slope, water to the left — Each building sits at its own level: the ridge lines repeat the fall of the hill, with the separate house further up.

The four-and-a-half-hectare estate from above: the building group among lawns and hedges, surrounded by existing trees, a gravel drive and water in the distance — Four and a half hectares: the layout works around the existing trees, with paths and hedges drawing the courtyards.

Visualisations of an unbuilt scheme, not photographs · post-production includes AI-based upscaling and retouching

Ren Design is an interior architecture practice based in Budapest, working across Europe and the Gulf. On this project it produced the architectural concept and the visualisations; the architect of the buildings is András Toldi.