Description

Situated on the southeast outskirts of Berlin on a sloping site, the design by GAP Architekten responds to the contours of the site through a stepped arrangement of the buildings. The site borders a public landscape park to the north and a housing estate to the south and west. An existing hospital on the eastern part of the site adjoins the St. Michael Centre for the Elderly, constituting a functional unit with it.

The topography of the site and the terraced arrangement of the buildings provide expansive views out over the landscape. The central element is a glazed entrance hall which serves as a meeting and communication area with a café, a multi-purpose hall and a chapel. The nursing and care areas lie on each side of the spacious foyer along with 20 apartments for assisted living, which can also be accessed via an entrance of their own.

In contrast to the rendered external façades that face the neighbouring buildings, all private areas­ and interior courtyards have been clad with façade panels made of timber and glass. The larch timber has been stained grey to counteract the uneven ageing of the wood, and the premounted, storey-high timber façade elements are also slightly inclined to reduce the degree of weathering. The timber sections alternate with storey-high glass windows and are divided horizontally by metal weather strips on each floor. The terraces on the external façades have also been given a slatted larch cladding, setting them apart from the rendered façades.

In the design of the care areas, the architects have followed a therapy concept that motivates the residents, each according to their own ability, to remain mobile. This fundamental principle begins in the rooms themselves with the design of the windows, which were developed especially for this building. The low sill affords a good view out over the landscape from the resident’s bed, allowing the eye to wander, while a shelf integrated in the window invites residents to decorate and personalise their window with items of their own. As an interface between inside and outside, the window is an especially important element for people whose ability to shape their own environment has become increasingly limited. The window element is therefore the centrepiece of every room: it functions as a “display window”, as a “flower window” and as a “platform for items of personal value”. This effect is visible from inside as well as from outside, giving passers-by and visitors an impression of each individual, and at the same time helping residents to identify with their surroundings.

The corridors are light-filled, glazed walkways, arranged in a ring around the courtyard gardens, which have been planted by the residents themselves. Various seating areas provide an opportunity for residents to spend time outside. The gallery leads past a common room with its own small kitchen and a sheltered balcony with a view out over the landscape. The slatted timber front of the balcony provides a sense of privacy for the residents. The staff rooms are situated so that the staff can always see the residents moving around, providing additional reassurance for the residents.­ The residents are, of course, free to leave their floor, meet up with others in the common areas in the entrance hall or spend time outside in the garden. To aid orientation, the wall that leads from the entrance hall to the care areas has a special glass-fibre wall-covering that is painted and has a random structure.

A further visual highlight is the chapel, which, with its orthogonal arrangement of yellow, red and orange colours on the walls, is clearly differentiated from the other spaces in the building. It is used primarily as a space for prayer and meditation, but sometimes also together with an adjoining hall for larger events.

The construction of the entire complex varies with the load-bearing capacity of the soil and its position with regard to a water conservation area. The buildings containing the care facilities are predominantly masonry constructions and have no underground cellars, only an installations channel made of water-impervious concrete along the line of the bathrooms which can be accessed for maintenance purposes. This avoided the need for expensive double-wall sheathing for all the subterranean drainage pipes. Only the reinforced concrete frame construction of the entrance hall has a cellar for storage purposes, staff changing rooms and plant rooms.

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Originally published in: Eckhard Feddersen, Insa Lüdtke, Living for the Elderly: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2011.