RENOVATION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF VILLA ROMANA, VOLOSKO

CLIENT: „KELDAN“ d.o.o., OPATIJA
LOCATION: Volosko, Opatija
SURFACE: ca 490 m²
PURPOSE: Residential – villa
Project initiation: 2009

Villa Romana was built in the forties of the last century (1939). In the Rijeka State Archives the original documents are kept that contain the correspondence between the owner and the city government and complete descriptive documentation.

Villa Romana and a wide space of the belonging parking lot are located on a terraced area. The plot has an irregular trapezoidal shape and its surface amounts to 4,420 m².

The renovation of the plot should be done in the way that landscape value is preserved and the visual appearance of individual objects and landscapes is retained.

At the request of the investors the villa is adapted, so that the original appearance and function of the building is preserved (one owner of the villa – one flat). It is also important to renovate the park.

An auxiliary building is located close to residential buildings. The building is rectangular in shape, measuring 7.10 x 20.33 m. It involves the ground floor. It is made as a garage in one of the buildings and commercial premises in the second half. On the part of the building above the garage a flat roof is designed and two parking spaces are anticipated that may be accessed from the surrounding road from the northwest side.

An outdoor swimming pool for recreational swimming was constructed. The outdoor pool is a freestanding object. In the basement there is a technical room, a compensation pool and an installation room with a cover. The ground floor includes an outdoor pool, a shower and a sun deck.

The roads that are in poor condition are completely repaired. All hiking trails of the park are filled with crushed stone between curbs.

Due to the terraced surface (in order to overcome height differences), retaining walls made of rustic stone blocks are repaired. The cleaned supporting walls made of vegetation are reconstructed by adding and jointing stone blocks that are missing.

All the stone stairs in the park have been preserved and reconstructed. Stone stairs and original paving in front of the front door on the ground floor are retained, and new paving around the building, as well as all the terraces around the house were made in the original way (similar or the same size of tiles, similar in color and the same way of agreement in the shape of “L”) with clinker tiles.

The south terrace of the residential building is performed by using granite cubes in color. The mosaic structure can be seen in the pictures.

The east terrace of the residential building is paved with natural crushed stone so that a soil-grass layer remains between the stones. In the same way the plateau to the sea on the south side was designed, where there is a gazebo and existing vines. The existing concrete pillars of the gazebo are collapsing. A new gazebo is made in the combination of wood and pillars lined with brick, and next to the gazebo there is a summer kitchen. The bunker buried under the gazebo includes a decorated winery.

The entire plant material that could be kept was in fact kept, and it will be supplemented by indigenous plant species of the area (Town of Opatija and Volosko) so that the plant material is filled with already grown species of approx. 5-6 m (e.g. Pinus pinea) in order to avoid contrast between the plants from the garden and newly planted plants, but to keep the impression that no interference was done in this area.

This means that the garden content will be as it once was in its functional sense: an orchard, vegetable garden, rose garden, flower garden, winter garden-greenhouse, area for relaxing.

The work performed by Gradel on the arrangement of Villa Romana and all auxiliary facilities and landscaping:

– Carrying out external installation works (water and sewage, stormwater drainage)

– Renovation of the entire structure of Villa Romana

– Works on the internal installations (electrical installations, water, sewage, heating, air conditioning)

– Performing floor covering works

– Performing suspended ceilings

– Refurbishment of the facade (restoration)

– Works on the development and tiling of driveways to Villa Romana (tiling by granite cubes and crushed stone)

– Ceramic works – paving walls, floors, plateaus, terraces etc.

– Art metalwork: preparation and setting up elements of a wrought iron fence

– Complete landscaping of the facility, including planting of plants, landscaping the lawns and access paths