The Trim House by KWK Promes Splits the Difference

When KWK Promes was invited to submit a concept for a house in Vilnius, Lithuania, the parameters might have sounded like an architect’s dream: Here was a private client selecting a firm via competition to envision a home on a generous suburban footprint.

Modern minimalist building by KWK Promes with large glass windows and concrete exterior, adjacent to a neatly mowed lawn and bordered by a forested area.

“This is an area characterized by loose, traditional development, with houses and summer cottages nestled among trees and expansive recreational grounds,” the firm explains. “On the plot included in the competition, as well as in its surroundings, there were once wooden houses from the interwar period, which have not survived to the present day.”

A modern interior by KWK Promes with a large glass window, white spiral staircase, light wooden cabinetry, and a marble kitchen island. Green grass is visible outside.

A modern kitchen and dining area designed by KWK Promes features minimalist decor, marble surfaces, a spiral staircase, and expansive floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a lush lawn.

Based in Katowice, Poland, and led by Robert Konieczny, KWK Promes is an innovative firm known internationally for its bold residential and cultural projects. So it comes as no surprise that it was chosen to design the house in Vilnius.

Modern living room designed by KWK Promes, featuring a large beige sectional sofa, glass walls, and views of a green lawn and forest. Minimalist decor and abundant natural light fill the space.

Minimalist modern interior by KWK Promes featuring large glass windows, a marble-topped console, round mirror, and white lamp, with an outdoor garden visible through the sleek windows.

Its idea was simple: By raising part of the house one level up, the patio space is doubled, ushering daylight deep into the spaces within. The living area, with its communal spaces, would be on the ground level and the bedrooms above. A simple, yet effective, plan.

Modern two-story building by KWK Promes with large glass windows, an upper terrace with glass railing, and a courtyard featuring a single potted tree and white gravel, all surrounded by tranquil pine trees.

Then, in 2017, the site was halved just before the architects could begin the build: The Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union came to power and reduced the allowable building footprint by 50 percent. Instead of bailing — and following the client’s instinct to start looking for a new site — KWK Promes convinced the owner to stay and reduce the home’s surface area by 40 percent. “As a result, a triangular floor plan emerged.”

Modern two-story house exterior by KWK Promes, featuring large windows that reveal a living and dining area below and a furnished room above; small tree in gravel courtyard sits in the foreground.

While most architects will tell you that they need constraints in order to conceptualize, this was going above and beyond. The firm effectively sliced the home in half — its diagram shows how the final form emerged — and made it better. The tighter geometries created dynamic, idiosyncratic conditions in a house that now measures 3,230 square feet.

A small tree in a round planter stands on a pebble ground in a modern glass-walled KWK Promes courtyard, with tall pine trees visible outside.

Instead of a double patio, the house now wraps its two levels around an interior courtyard. The building is a composition of concrete and glass, its sharp angles — the most dramatic being a flat-iron elevation — complemented by the curved curtain wall of the atrial volume. The interior (by Yes. Design Architecture) features a sculptural spiral staircase as a focal point against minimal furnishings and neutral finishes — save for the ostentatiously veined marble of the kitchen island.

Modern angular grey concrete house by KWK Promes with large windows, surrounded by grass, shrubs, and tall pine trees in a wooded area.

A modern, angular concrete building by KWK Promes with large windows sits on a manicured lawn next to a paved walkway, surrounded by tall pine trees.

Completed in 2025, Trim House shows how innovative thinking can overcome the steepest obstacles and that smaller is sometimes better.

To see this and other works by the firm, visit kwkpromes.pl.

Photos by Jakub Certowicz and Juliusz Sokołowski.

Elizabeth Pagliacolo is the Editor of Azure magazine and Executive Editor of Design Milk. Based in Toronto, she covers design at every scale, from the spoon to the city. Some of her favourite things, in no particular order, are Mulholland Drive (the movie and the place), burnt Basque cheesecake (preferably from Toronto's Bar Raval), true crime podcasts (indiscriminately) and the sound of boots crunching down on fall leaves.

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