ABSTRACT
In this article, we describe the design and construction of the DARS (Slovenian Highways Company) office building, which was designed by the design firm studio abiro (Ljubljana) between 2019 and 2021 and was under construction between 2022 and 2024. The building’s unique feature is its external cold construction in steel, which, in addition to its load-bearing role, also has the function of shielding it from the incoming sunlight. The design of the building is described in the article “The principles of combining facade loadbearing properties with the effects of sustainable passive shading”. (Blenkuš, Peharda, Avgušin, & Žvan, 2022).
In addition to reporting on the actual experience of constructing this building, the paper presents the functional, contextual, and semantic aspects of the relationship between the structure, the thermal envelope, and the flexibility of the building, with a particular focus on adaptability over long intervals (50 years or more). A comparative historical method is used. The general hypothesis of the article is that the most durable and least changeable elements of the building should also constitute its contextual overall appearance and long term identity. This principle prevails in historical construction, while it becomes uncommon in contemporary practices of building re-use and refurbishment.
The outcome of the paper is a critical assessment of placing the structure on the exterior side of the thermal envelope, with an emphasis on architectural aspects of the building’s entire life cycle and its appearance in relation to the spatial and temporal context, which are usually overlooked in this type of analysis.
