Case studies

"In 2017 there was a great investment opportunity, when 16 family houses and a 17-apartment condominium was to be built. Architect Laszlo Bogar and myself have been investors for a long time, so this was a chance we could not pass.

After getting familiar with the regulations of the local authorities, the mood and atmosphere of the buildings to be built has taken a form in our minds very quickly. We reached out to a local design office with our plans, and told them what we had in mind. We shook hands, and started our long wait for the first conceptual drawings. Weeks turned into months but nothing happened. When confronted, their reply was always the same - "We are working on it".

We visit the Construma AEC trade fair every year in order to mingle with professionals and benchmark with the latest know-how. This is what we did in 2018, too, where we came across CADLine, offering ARCHLine.XP at its booth. I can't really say what had attracted us there, as we didn't have the faintest desire to actually design anything. We had enough work as it was. During the presentations, however, something started moving in our heads. Whenever we had been looking at other software programs, we always had the same misgivings - they were either too expensive, with no hope for a return on ivestment, or they were so primitive that their end results would be too shameful to present to our clients. ARCHLine.XP wasn't expensive, nor primitive. 

We have spent 6 months waiting for a decent plan from the design office, to no avail. We decided to take matters into our own hands, buy ARCHLine.XP, and make an attempt at learning it.

It was an enormous surprise how intuitive the program proved to be, and we were amazed at the quality of the tutorial videos it was accompanied by. Within 3 months I created the street view of the family houses, and the visuals of the condominium. 

By the end of 2018, we got the permits for the family houses, and the apartment block was being reviewed for permit.

It is true that we had to reorganize how we work, so that I can focus on design to my full capacity, but this challenge was resolved by the hiring of another colleagues.

When I think about it, it feels great returning to do the designing myself. Whether this was a good decision, the property owners and the rising number of clients will tell.

 

A few words about the buildings

The town of Keszthely is considered as the capital of the lake Balaton; Heviz is the richest town of Hungary; the infrastructure is outstanding, there is an airport nearby, not to mention the many spa resorts. These are all huge added values from a real estate perspective. Public safety is outstanding, the towns in this area are vibrant, and full of life for the whole year. We are talking about a clean, organized place, with highways leading to the Austrian border and to the Adriatic sea. Budapest is 192 km away, Bratislava is 205 km, Vienna is 198 km.

The residence is 14 700 m²  reachable via a private road. On the area close to the road, a 2 story condominium will be built with 17 flats, equipped with an elevator. The flats vary from 34 m²  to 94 m² with an average of 8-60 m² of open balconies. (Vadaskert Residence)

On the 2nd floor of the condominium, we have planned 2 luxury penthouse apartments with an amazing view (Vadaskert Residence)

There are 8 semi-detached houses with the areas of 120-180 m² on plots of around 5-600 m². Clients can choose from extras such as pools, covered driveways, or garages. (Vadaskert Villapark)

As for the terraced houses, there are 4x2 100-160 m² family houses on private plots of 400 m² each, with pools, covered driveways, or garages.

For both properties, we have designed natural looking family friendly dwellings, which fit the surroundings nicely. They fit the high standards of their prospective owners - they are cost-effective smart homes with heat pumps and ceiling HVAC systems.

 

About the property

The most prominent trees of this property are oaks (fagus), birches (betula), maples (acer), cedars (cedrus) and planes (platanus), and they appear in the naming of the properties, too. The smaller house is called Acer, the larger one is named Fagus.

The entrances are oriented to north, the living room and the terrace faces south. From the buildings you can see the town of Keszthely and the hilly suburbs of Heviz. 

The Acer house has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, living room, and a storage room. The master bedroom is on the ground floor, with an en-suite bathroom. The children's bedrooms are on the 1st floor, with their own bathroom.

The Fagus house has 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen, livingroom, storage and garage. The master bedroom is on the 1st floor, with its own bathroom. The children's bedrooms are also on the 1st floor, with their own bathroom. There is a smaller room on the ground floor with an en-suite bathroom, this can act as a guestroom or a bedroom for the children.

 

The entirety of the design process has been realized with ARCHLine.XP. The buildings were planned in 3D, and then the 2D documentation was originated from these models easily.

Purchasing the software was a necessity, but with it new perspectives have opened up. I think our choice has been validated by our ever-growing client base"