The Vizafogó parish lodge has been renewed with KAV support

The full building structure, energy renovation and functional extension of the St. Martin of Tours parish lodge has been completed. The concept of this building on Váci út in Budapest, serving religious purposes, was developed by the head of our company, Károly Lovász. And although the implementation was performed by others through the public procurement procedure, KAV supported and checked the entire process as professional advisor during the works. We talked about this five year process with Dr Gábor Tamás Juhász, the parish priest

“The entire story started in the summer of 2012 when we had a cycling tour with one of my dear believers, uncle Géza, around the Balaton. During this trip, he offered to help the parish with something. We agreed that he would fund the repair of my bedroom’s leaking window. This is how I got to know Károly Lovász, brought to the parish by the wife of uncle Géza” tells the father. “KAV already did an excellent job during the renovation of the window. You need to understand that this was a small but rather delicate task that nobody wanted to take up. When the 30 year old stone-masonry work surrounding the window was demolished, it turned out that was hardly any water and heat insulation. This was the first time that Károly indicated that it would be worthwhile if we examined the entire building and applied for renovation grants. This is how the process started, during which more and more professionals arrived, and then we started to work on how to restructure the parish lodge with the view to make it more usable.”

A full building survey and structural engineering excavation was performed on the site under the management and with financing from the KAV Engineering Office. Then Károly Lovász started to develop the professional concept of the transformation and the initiative that resulted in the parish lodge getting the funds required for the work in December 2015. Our company provided professional support to the parish lodge during the entire implementation process. “I knew nothing about what technological options I had during the transformation of the parish lodge. I didn’t know for example that certain parts of the mid-corridor could be replaced with a steel beam. They helped me to understand what was happening, what’s feasible and what isn’t. It also happened that they stopped incorrect things from continuing.” recalls Dr. Gábor Tamás Juhász. It is thanks to KAV, amongst others, that during the implementation we did not have to surrender the stained glass window and the suspended ceiling, which also play a role in the acoustics of the church area.

During the transformation, the entrance of the building was renovated, and a new bell-tower was built, inside which you can find the staircase leading to the liturgical space, the new elevator and the modern building engineering spaces and, in addition, three new bronze bells were installed into the tower. A photovoltaic system is installed on the roof, which can provide nearly all the energy for the parish lodge. To the greatest delight of the parish priest, the service areas and the parish lodge was transformed in a way that the greatest floor-space can be used functionally: “What makes me the happiest is that unusable spaces have been removed and, as a result, the meeting room, the internal community space and its servicing kitchen-dining area became a lot larger.

The layout of the building indeed became a lot better, which creates new opportunities to really live in the building. With the renewal of the entrance, the church became recognisable even from the street, and so more and more people enter during the day just to look at the building. With this transformation, a new chapter is really starting in the life of our community and that is why I am very grateful to KAV.”