Burger House

Klaus-Peter Gast

Description

The principal difficulty to be overcome for this house on a steep slope with a view of Lake Constance was bringing the magnificent view to the north and the sunlight on the south side together spatially. Four levels are stacked on a narrow ground plan with ancillary rooms on the bottom floor and the children’s area on the ground floor above that, with bedrooms, play area and attached playground. As the main access route is from the street to the south, a bridge was put in position to lead to the first floor, the parents’ bedroom area, with a dramatically curving staircase leading up to the top storey vantage point that forms the living area. The architects designed living accommodation that gives a sense of opulence despite its limited dimensions.

The eye is free to roam over a considerable expanse, expanding the space, not just because of the glazed cockpit of the dynamically rounded stairway but mainly thanks to the opening on both sides, with a balcony extension to the south. A long run of roof glazing mediates spatially and in terms of the building’s geometry between the lower kitchen section and the living room and fills the space with light, following the straight path of the linear kitchen. Here living space becomes a ‘living deck’, a viewing platform with a particular spatial quality. The bridge and the curve of the stairs are also reminiscent of nautical motifs without overtaxing superficially formal associations. On the contrary, the functional zones are delineated on the façades through different material structures, so that the house divides up powerfully into access track and usable space without falling apart. This ‘double face’ within a closed overall form is enhanced by the strongly contrasting aperture configurations, placed opposite each other.