Description

The plan closes the corner lot with a row, and the circumferential balconies mark the end of the street. The building is connected to the shallower neighbouring house in the street by a narrow structure with terraces (running all the way from the street through to the courtyard).

The apartment floor plans are wrapped around two stairwells so that all apartments can claim two orientations or views (street/courtyard or street/corner or courtyard/corner). The stairwells are coiled around a lightwell that runs from top to bottom through the building; they begin in the raised ground floor with a large entry hall, almost one and a half stories high, and open out onto long landings on the floors.

Almost every apartment has a special feature: corner living rooms with windows on two sides (at the end of the row); clear separation of living and sleeping according to two points of the compass (central apartments); terraces extending from front to back of building (apartments connected to the neighbouring house); circumferential rooftop terraces (apartments on sixth floor); etc. All windows are from floor to ceiling; the circumferential balconies are 60 cm wide on the street side (exception: in front of corner apartment) and 1.75 m wide on the courtyard side.

 

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Originally published in: Oliver Heckmann, Friederike Schneider (eds.), Floor Plan Manual Housing, fourth revised and expanded edition, Birkhäuser, 2011.