An old Polish mill is disassembled and rebuilt into a modern rural home | Concrete Ideas

An old wooden grain mill in eastern Poland has been given a new lease of life as a modern residential home.

Polish architects o4architekci first had the idea to revamp a crumbling mill in 2014, and won a major Polish architecture award for their concept Contemporary House — Village House.

But it wasn’t until the team were approached by an investor in Lublin, who had a potential property he wanted turned into a residential house, that they had chance to realise their dream. Their main design challenge was to use the full height of the mill and preserve its original features, while making the space comfortable and adequate as a modern home.

To fulfil its new function, the mill had to be disassembled, with some of the original parts saved to be reused as building materials. The structure was then built from scratch from reinforced concrete to the exact shape of the former mill. Inside, rooms are distributed across three floors, with an additional basement floor and mezzanine.

Old and new materials and styles blend seamlessly in this rural outpost. o4architekci installed an antique windmill rotor between the top floors on the building’s exterior. They reused the mill’s old beams as the outer walls, while creating a half-timbered interior wall.

On the client’s request, old railway sleepers were also turned into a fence.