Image courtesy MBB
Designed by New York-based Murphy Burnham & Buttrick Architects (MBB), the Garitage Park residential tower in Sofia, Bulgaria, is set to kick off construction. The building is part of a 16-ha (39-acre) mixed-use district rising in the city.
Designed to Passive House standards, the 41,806-m2 (450,000-sf), 24-story residential building and surrounding park-like landscape forms the fourth and final phase of the Garitage Park development which is anticipated to set a European benchmark for sustainable mixed-use districts.
The tower features cutting-edge mechanical systems including variable refrigerant flow ventilation (VRV) and energy recovery ventilator (ERV) units that boost comfort for each apartment, while its precisely engineered hybrid rainscreen façade contributes to a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold equivalent Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) certification.
All 160 individual homes also feature high-performance mechanized window shades, and a series of integrated sliding screens on the façade. The screens are designed to shield living areas and terrace space while also providing a sense of variability and visual contrast with the façade’s primarily gridded form, which echoes Sofia’s historic housing blocks.
MBB designed the tower with a focus on the pedestrian experience, as well as quality of the interior spaces. The positioning of the tower highlights Sofia’s dynamic views of the mountains that rise to the south of the city.
This phase will complete the master plan for this development.
