Description

Apartment access diagrams – Building Structure

Unité d´habitation, Le Corbusier, 1952, cross section, scale
1:500

“Building, by virtue of constructing locations, is a founding and joining of
spaces.” Martin Heidegger (trans. Alfred Hofstadter)

The concept of building structure at first evokes, pragmatically, the
organizational form of construction and construction techniques such as
cross-wall or skeleton construction. In the present chapter, however, the term
refers primarily to how spaces are connected.

Multistory residential buildings mediate a wide variety of social spaces that
have diverse relationships to one another. First, these are relationships within
the dwelling, manifested in the typology of the floor plan; additionally, there
is the relationship between the private unit and the collective spaces of access
and circulation, communal facilities, functions unrelated to housing, and
finally the surrounding open and urban space. Between all these spaces, boundary
relationships form, determining the relationship between private, communal, and
public.

The many types of social floor space have organized on so little area that their
arrangement permits a graduation of the various spheres.[1] residential buildings are, as a rule, successful when they offer both
private retreat and mutual encounter and even new forms of living together,
while at the same time contributing to the urban qualities of the city in a
positive sense.

The internal organization and spatial configuration in this process is above all
the expression of the social conditions in whose context they are created.
“Spatial configurations, cultural models, and forms of social organization
become ‘lived in’ by us. Housing (…), now as much as ever, represents economic
relationships and indicates social status; it conveys information about the
social conventions that regulate living together, about gender roles, about
relationships between parents and children and between generations; it is a
fundamental indicator of the division of society into groups or of the degree of
individualization; through models for living and life styles it defines cultural
belonging and identities.”[2]

Housing and Privacy

The parameters that determine housing have changed fundamentally over the past
150 years. Moreover, they also differ according to the cultural sphere in which
residential buildings are created. When we consider the question of how we live
together, we find that the spatial solutions correspond to processes of change
in the society in question.

From a historical perspective, the spatial formation of privacy is a very recent
phenomenon. The principle of the living space as a place of retreat for the
family and of a dialectic between public and private spheres evolved in the
bourgeois society of the nineteenth century, and only in the twentieth century
did the small family become the general model for housing.

Profound transformations, such as the demographic changes of increasing average
age and the world of work moving from an industrial and service economy to a
knowledge economy has led in recent decades to increasing individualization and
as a consequence to new styles of living and dwelling. The small family as the
guiding principle of society, which for many decades has been manifested
architecturally as “three rooms, kitchen, and bathroom,” is increasingly
breaking down. The essence of housing today, according to the philosopher Peter
Sloterdijk, is located outside of traditional family homes. Whereas modernism
tried to create the same conditions for all, ambitious projects today respond to
the growing number of very different alternative lifestyles by offering a
combination of numerous floor plans, which are then brought together into a
large-scale form independently of their respective vision of dwelling. A
successful blueprint for life is equated with the individual’s self-realization
in private space and personal development – within a family or within a freely
chosen group.

From the “Whole House” to the Small-Family Dwelling

Although housing in the twentieth century was equated with the concept of family,
this was the product of a social evolution.[3]Prior to industrialization, most buildings united working and dwelling
under one roof. The “whole house” was primarily a site of production.[4]People lived together because they worked together. Grouped around the core
family of a manorial married couple and their unmarried children, the “whole
house” also included servants and elderly or unmarried relatives. This large
household lived in buildings with few distinctions made by the interior
structure. Functions of working and dwelling such as eating and sleeping took
place in the same rooms. The transformation of the economic system of the house
into the “modern dwelling” took place in a process that lasted many years,
driven by industrialization. The separation of dwelling and working into spatial
and temporal opposites and the exclusion of people from the large household
ultimately led to the small family defining the household. This redefined
members’ relationships both within the household and with the outside world.
“The result was a bourgeois private sphere as a contrast with the public sphere,
where, protected from outside eyes, it was possible to cultivate intimacy,
emotionality, and individuality.”[5]The parceling of space led to a new type: the self-contained family home.
Within the dwelling, rooms were differentiated according to their categorization
by function into utility, private, and entertainment rooms (such as the living
room). The bourgeois comfort of a self-contained family home was, however, not a
binding standard for the rest of the population – that is, the working class –
until well into the twentieth century. “If we consider that around the turn of
the century more than two thirds of all bed lodgers lived with families with
several children, who had to keep their fixed costs as low as possible, any
notion of a ‘private’ familial interior must be abandoned.”[6]Nevertheless, the transformation from the “whole house” to the
“self-contained unit” was complete.

The Perimeter Block

In order to meet the massive need for living space caused by the rising middle
and working classes, the perimeter block with multistory apartment buildings was
developed. The apartment building did not evolve until the nineteenth century.
The volumes of these ring-shaped blocks delimited and demarcated the urban space
of streets and plazas from private backyards. Two social and spatial spheres
formed, which would become characteristic of the large European city. The
perimeter block mediated between these spheres by forming a horizontal and a
vertical layer. On one side were closed-in courtyard spaces, which were either
planted or served as pure utility yards; on the other side were the front
entrances, usually elaborately designed. The private residential units were
inside on four to six floors. The ground floor either housed stores and
commercial spaces with their own entrances or the ground floor was elevated, to
provide privacy for the apartments. Following the model of aristocratic and
upper-middle-class residences, the best apartments were on the second floor.
They were elevated from the cold ground and public space but nevertheless easily
accessible, usually via an imposing stairwell. This floor, the so-called
belétage or piano Nobile, was emphasized by special design features such as bay
windows and balconies and also distinguished by higher ceiling heights and more
elaborately designed rooms. The stately rooms for entertaining were placed on
the street side; the courtyard side had the secondary and utility rooms; the
side buildings had rooms for servants. The higher floors became less and less
imposing. The apartments on the top floor and in the semi-basement were reserved
for lower classes of society.

Although such buildings were characterized by distinctions in their functional
and social mix, they were not collective housing forms oriented around
community. They were primarily intended to ensure two demands of bourgeois
living: the need for the family to retreat into a private sphere and its need to
display its status, to participate symbolically in public life. The perimeter
block became the universal architectural type, but it by no means created equal
living conditions for all. Alongside grand districts with upper-middle-class
apartments, cities like Berlin also had Mietskasernen, or “rental barracks,” in
working-class neighborhoods. High-density buildings with a succession of three
to four courtyards ensured that lots were built as densely as possible.

Inclusion and exclusion constituted the basic principle of the European block of
the late nineteenth century. The polarity of private and public, inside and
outside, rich and poor, top and bottom clearly distinguished spatial and social
situations from one another. Threshold zones and interim spaces marked the
alternation between the spheres, but what they emphasized was primarily the fact
that there were two sides. The organization of the interior was determined by
the access stairwells. The stacked apartments were grouped but also clearly
separated from one another. Minimizing the areas of contact and not creating
individual entrances accounted for the increased privacy of this form of
housing. Point access combined a manageable number of units into one address.
Facing outward, the image presented to the street had a clear rhythm. Facing
inward, parceling the lot resulted in a fragmentation of the courtyards.

Karl-Marx-Hof, Karl Ehn, 1930, elevation

Sapngen residential block, Michiel Brinkman, 1921, site plan

Housing and Community

Under the influence of ideas from social reformers, the housing question became
the central theme of architecture and urban planning at the beginning of the
twentieth century. As a programmatic alternative to the miserable housing of the
rental barracks, new collective models of housing and developments were
developed, with their first heyday in the 1920s. They focused on two central
aspects: introducing binding minimums for the private unit and reinforcing the
neighborhood community. Possible typologies for the floor plan of small
apartments were explored systematically and summarized in such collections of
floor plans as Die Wohnung für das Existenzminimum (The apartment for the
minimal existence).[7]At the same time, the potential for semipublic spaces – open areas, access
areas, and collective structures to promote solidarity – were recognized as an
opportunity for residents to interact as a community. The discovery of
courtyards not only humanized the building block but also initiated the
evolution of housing developments with typical slab structures. Light, air, and
sun were the goals. The building block was abandoned; the mixture of uses
decreased; and green spaces became increasingly important as elements of the
extended exterior living space. The apartment building began to be increasingly
distinct depending on the urban context, the type of building, the structure of
use, the form of access, the layout of the units, and the organization of open
space – and the relationships between private, communal, and public areas
changed.

Building Typology

The following section explores the basic types in terms of how a building relates
spatially to its surroundings. Block structures, clusters, and solitary
buildings represent the different approaches. The following questions are
primary: How does the building structure respond to the surrounding public
space? How is the semipublic space of the neighborhood designed as a connecting
member between public and private space? How is the private unit organized? What
elements are there for drawing boundaries and establishing connections? The way
individuality and community are expressed are additional criteria when
considering the projects that follow.

The Block

These so-called Gemeindebauten, or “municipality buildings,” define the concept
of community primarily by creating a common center. The apartments are no longer
accessed from the street but rather from the courtyard. The Karl-Marx-Hof (Karl
Ehn, 1930) is probably the most significant example of this, and as a city
within the city offers living space for about 5,500 people on its grounds just
over a kilometer long. Just a few access gates lead from the street space to the
protected semipublic space of the courtyard interior. From there separate paths
continue to the entrances to the units. Ninety-eight staircases lead to 1,382
apartments. The generous courtyards of this multistory apartment building give
it the character of a garden city. Rather than single-family homes, the majority
of the units are minimal apartments – one for each worker. Most of this face
only in one direction, and only some of them have a private open area. The
courtyards are used as play areas and gardens. What the apartments lack is
offered in communal structures, distributed in various common buildings,
primarily in the courtyard: laundries, shared bathrooms, day-care centers, and
much more. There are only a few public uses on the street sides. From outside,
the block appears to be a largely continuous wall; the high ground floor
reinforces this closed-off character. Although the approach is very much
community-oriented, the Karl-Marx-Hof has a powerful separating character as a
housing complex: the various spheres – urban-public, communal, private – are
clearly separated from one another.

The Spangen residential complex by Michiel Brinkman of 1921 predates it by
several years. Here too the interiors of the blocks are designed as a coherent
courtyard, albeit zoned into volumes. The collective facilities are located here
and all of the units are accessed from here as well. Once again immense access
gates lead into the courtyard, and the asphalt paths, paved sidewalks, and
gardens give it the character of an autonomous city. In contrast to the Viennese
Gemeindebauten, all the housing units in Spangen are accessed directly from the
courtyard, resulting in a close, neighborly connection. The apartments on the
two lowest floors are accessed from the ground level; bay-window-like
projections connect the various access areas, and on the third floor a
continuous gallery more than two meters wide provides access to houselike
maisonette-type units. Photographs from the 1920s show these broad galleries,
which in various places widen into plaza-like areas and serve as a common open
space, were lively “elevated residential streets.” All of the units extend the
full depth of the building, and their gardens, balconies, and loggias are
oriented toward the courtyard. The individual space borders directly on the
common space and thus becomes an important “space of negotiation.” A varied play
of diverse opening elements accompanies the transition between inside and
outside.

Dealing with the block remains a central theme today. Opening and closing
perimeter blocks and buildings placed in gaps – the examples of mutations of
blocks are diverse. In contrast to Spangen and the Viennese example, Kollhoff
und Timmermann’s Leibnizkolonnaden project in Berlin (2001) takes up the classic
tradition of the nineteenth century. On one side of the structure a new,
spacious urban plaza is created; on the other side the closed-off world of the
rear courtyards is completed. Both horizontally and vertically there is a
layering of different spaces and functions. In addition to residences, the
flexible structure is filled with stores, offices, restaurants, a hotel, and
day-care centers. A two-story colonnaded space extends the plaza and provides a
filter in the transition to the public uses of the building on the upper floors,
primarily in the northern buildings and facing the plaza to the south. The
stairwells for vertical point access are all on the inner sides of the block.
Consequently, all of the apartments, some of which have views in only one
direction, have contact with the green inner courtyard via the access spaces.
This project demonstrates that it is possible to have varied functions within a
block structure. At the same time, the focus is on orientation toward urban
space. By comparison, the communal aspect scarcely plays a role.

By means of a polarity of inside and outside, courtyards also have the potential
to develop a unique quality thanks to their seclusion. This approach is pursued
by Herzog & de Meuron in their Rue des Suisses residential complex (2000)  in the middle of the
metropolis of Paris. The charm of the introverted “garden” results precisely
from the seclusion of the courtyard. Three lots were combined to create a common
neighborhood inside the block that is accessible only to residents. The project
unites traditional apartment buildings, residential lofts, and two mini-houses.
This mix of different types of building, access, and apartment produces an
exciting diversity and thus reacts to the different situations of small spaces
in the compact rear courtyard. Whereas the two buildings on the facade adopt the
vertical structure of the perimeter block, an elongated three-story slab
structure evolves in the interior of the courtyard, and its apartments, with
their spacious arcade-like balcony zone, establish a close connection to the
garden. The structure responds to the high density with a spatial layering of
the facades and by proving the units with views in different directions. The
boundary between inside and outside can be controlled individually by means of a
variable system of shutters and roller blinds which surround the private open
spaces at various depths.

The superblock Piraeus on
KNSM-eiland in Amsterdam developed by Kollhoff und Timmermann with Rapp (1994)
avoids such a clear classification. Because of the varied contextual
relationships, its sculptural volume was modulated in such a way that it eludes
the usual categories of public urban space and closed-off courtyard space. The
meandering form of the block achieves one thing above all: not cutting itself
off from the city but rather integrating the attractive urban qualities of the
waterfront location into the living environment and permitting as many
apartments as possible share in it. The connections are also diverse in the
access areas. By combining vertical point access to two units on each floor with
an access gallery that alternates between the street and the courtyard side
depending on the compass direction, all of the apartments either extend the full
depth of the building or have views in multiple directions. A central, freely
placed functional core with the kitchens and bathrooms divides the apartments
into a living area and a sleeping area but at the same time creates an inner
transparence between the two sides. The 143 different types of units include
some maisonettes. Glazed loggias provide a buffer in the transition with the
outside world and emphasize by means of the closed form of a cube the private,
protected space of the units, despite their urban character.

Leibnizkolonnaden, Kollhoff und Tiemmermann, 2001, section, scale
1:500

The play between inside and outside can even go so far as to include not just the
relationship between courtyard and street but also the building itself, as is
demonstrated by Kaden Klingbeil’s example of a building filling a gap in a perimeter block in Prenzlauer
Berg in Berlin (2008).  This narrow residential building is accessed
via a receded open stair tower and thus avoids closing the perimeter block
entirely. The gap results in a spatial transparency, not only between the
apartments and the common and access areas but also between the street and
courtyard sides.  The vertical point access to one unit on each floor maximizes
the possible separation of the units but nevertheless the collective access
space, which by means of bridges and spacious open terraces is extended to the
private open spaces, offers a communal aspect. On top of the commercial unit on
the ground floor, this seven-story building stacks six spacious apartments whose
spatial offerings correspond to those of a small house. A base frame with no
internal bearing walls makes it possible for each owner to design the ground
floor of his or her unit individually. The individual front doors, generous
interior and exterior space, views in multiple directions, and an entire floor
for each party – all of this provides residents with a sense of living in a
single-family home in the middle of a dense urban structure.

The Slab and Point Blocks

In the case of a slab structure, the duality of inside and outside shifts to one
of front and back. Because they are secluded, courtyards become places of
imaginary projection. They play with the dialectic of open and hidden, often
just with hints. In the case of Kollhoff und Timmermann’s Leibnizkolonnaden,
passageways offer the urban flâneur views into interior courtyards with
greenery, but access is prohibited by gates. Slabs and point blocks, by
contrast, present themselves as objects that can be walked around. Nevertheless,
blocks and slabs have in common that they distinguish the qualities of the
various spaces, and the built space – the building itself – has the task of
balancing the different sides. This dual relationship dissipates in point
blocks. Theoretically, the latter have the same qualities on all sides (although
even the orientation relative to the sun ensures there will be differences here
too).

As a result, the inner connectedness is diminished. The common center disappears;
the polarity of courtyard and street dissipates. The space surrounding the
building is public on all sides at first. Relationships can be established by
grouping the buildings into ensembles or by zoning the spaces into inside and
outside. As a basic principle, slabs for a linear layer, point blocks and towers
a ring-shaped one. As a rule, point blocks have vertical point access with
multiple units per floor, while slabs can have vertical point access, corridors,
or galleries.

Byker Wall, Ralph Erskine, 1980, cross section, scale 1:500

Bruno Taut’s three-story curved slab building in Berlin, the Hufeisensiedlung, or
“horseshoe development,” of 1930 is indeed comparable to the community
courtyards in Vienna and Rotterdam, thanks to its ring-shaped arrangement and
its collective open spaces. Nevertheless, it can help us to clarify the
principles of spatial transitions that are typical of the slab typology. Front
and back is clearly defined by the street and green space. A manageable group of
six units is accessed via stairwells serving two units each. The horizontal
articulation is defined by separate entrances to the apartments and individual
addresses. The entrance to the building and the stairwell face the street. A
front garden zone several meters deep sets the building off from public space
and forms, in combination with the slightly elevated ground floor, the necessary
distance for the ground-floor units. The apartments run the full depth of the
building, providing contact on both sides. Whereas the “night” areas face the
street, the kitchen, loggia, and living room are oriented toward the gardens in
front. Each apartment has its own garden as an additional “exterior living
room.”

In the case of Ralph Erskine’s Byker
Wall in Newcastle (1972),  carving into a back and a front and the
principle of spatial layering are even clearer than in Taut’s building.
Erskine’s ribbonlike slab is just eight meters deep but nearly a kilometer long,
and it forms a boundary between the multilane highway to the north and the lower
courtyard development to the south, offering noise protection as well. The
“vertical residential neighborhood” is accessed via an extensively branching
system of very wide galleries, thus taking up the concept of “streets in the
air” formulated by Peter and Alison Smithson as early as 1953, interpreting the
access gallery as an elevated street, much as it is in the case of Spangen, and
focuses on its significance as a space for encounters. It is also worth noting
that the exterior courtyard was not placed on the unattractive northern side but
shifted to the south, on what is actually the private side of the apartments.
This results in an area in which private and communal functions are
superimposed. Erskine employed various elements to mediate between them. The
entrances to the units are recessed in pairs; benches and plants form private
zones in front of the apartments, and all the units are organized as
maisonettes. The kitchens and living spaces are located on the entrance level;
the upper or lower level, respectively, has the night areas and an additional
private balcony. Because the apartments are designed in alternation to go up or
down from the access level, the access gallery is necessary only every third
floor.

The slab, as the dominant form of large-scale residential developments of the
postwar period, was influenced for a long time by the effort to economize by
means of stereotypical floor plans and neglecting semipublic areas (minimal
stairways, exterior spaces designed as merely a green setoff space), in recent
years it has been increasingly recognized for its potential for combining very
different forms of housing and access with attractive open spaces and common
facilities into one compact building.

The approach of the Kraftwerk
1 cooperative residential model in Zurich by Stücheli with
Bünzli & Courvosier (2001)  was not to create identical living conditions
for all but rather to provide as much spatial diversity as possible. The
realization of the space does not occur in a courtyard, as is typical of
community projects, but in a small development consisting of four solitary slab
buildings, three of which are arranged in a windmill pattern around the fourth.
Dispersing the communal and commercial uses through various buildings, on the
ground floor and on the roof, combined with the network of paths encourages
communication and circulation within the site. The building structure of the
central, east – west-oriented dominant is notable.  Above the ground floor,
which houses additional functions such as the day-care center, laundry room,
“slippers bar,” and commercial and office spaces, there are eight residential
floors. The apartments range from one to thirteen rooms, from apartments for
singles to combined living and working units, from classic family apartments of
the house-within-a-house type to enormous apartment shares. The diversity of
apartment sizes is made possible by a structure of staggered depths up to twenty
meters, by alternating the way the units interlock, and by combining different,
intersecting access forms. “Two basic types set the tone: the two-story ‘Le
Corbusier’ apartment, which is developed upward and downward from the entrance
on the interior access path, and the ‘Loos’ apartment, which permits sequences
of rooms with living spaces featuring high ceilings.”[8]Clearly formulated spatial boundaries protect the private sphere of the
individual residents despite the community-oriented living models. Public,
semipublic, and private areas are clearly distinguished from one another.

Kraftwerk 1, Stücheli with Bünzli & Courvoisier, 2001, section,
scale 1:500

Gemini Residence, MVRDV, 2005, cross section, scale 1:500

In point block structures, access is moved to the center of the building in order
to ensure the apartments have the best possible natural light and views and at
the same time to provide access to as many apartments as possible. The lack of
hierarchy among the exterior spaces often results in a conflict on the ground
floor between the link to the public, access to the building, and the privacy of
apartments and their open areas. The Hegianwandweg point block ensemble in Zurich (2003) by EM2N  reacts
adroitly in this respect by modeling the volumes and offering a differentiated
approach featuring different degrees of publicness. Jumps in the volume and
topography result in different zones of private and communal outdoor areas as
well as views in different directions from the apartments. There are deep
balcony zones in front of the buildings on all floors. With the help of flexible
shading elements, they can be transformed into green spaces, and the degree of
retreat and opening between inside and outside can be controlled
individually.

Because they are developed vertically, residential towers are particularly well
suited to protecting the privacy of apartments and at the same time offering
extroverted units oriented toward exterior space. The ground floor does not
usually have residential units, serving as a transfer zone between the public,
urban space and the private residential floors. Whereas the Marco Polo Tower by Behnisch
und Partner  in Hamburg offers a multistory lobby with public uses and service
facilities, and Cino Zucchi’s
residential towers in Milan   produce a fluid transition to the entrance halls
by means of deep arcade zones emphasized with white natural stone, the Gemini Residence in Copenhagen
by MVRDV (2005)  clearly shields itself off from the outside on the entrance
level. In general, the dialectic between private and public, inside and outside,
above and below is very strong in this project, and the reason for that lies in
its particular building structure. In order to preserve the monumental hollow
spaces inside the former grain silos, beginning from a height of ten meters the
apartments were hung on the outside as an autonomous layer of space in front.
Apart from the front doors, the concrete rings underneath this layer are
hermetically sealed. Inside the rings, a system of continuous galleries, stairs,
and elevators has been hung, providing access to the apartments on eight levels.
The heavy concrete ring remains closed even in the transition to the private
units; only the entrances to the apartments have been cut out of it. The large,
light-flooded empty silo remains primarily an aesthetic experience of space. It
is networked neither with the public space of the city nor with the private
units. By contrast, the large, loftlike panorama apartments open up onto the
public space from a safe distance, being all-glass on the side of the urban
environment and thus offer a free prospect outward. Layered concentric rings of
public, semipublic, and private spaces are clearly distinguished from one
another. A similar distance from public space yet with panorama view is also
found with the apartments in the eleven-story tower in Almere by Gigon / Guyer.  This
functional hybrid places its residential units on top of a department store and
restaurant. Here too the apartments become private spaces of retreat within an
urban environment.

The Cluster

Compact, dense, urban, and yet with the feeling of owning one’s own home in the
middle of the city – that is what cluster structures offer, as their special
quality is that they unite houselike types with a striking urban space. The
polarity of public and private space is particularly pronounced in these
projects, since all of the residential units, even those on the upper floors,
are accessed via their own front door directly from the public (street) space.
The building structure is derived from the compressed planar structure. The
basic module is formed from a minimized plot consisting of the residential unit
and its private open space.

The variation of apartment types includes row, atrium, and terrace buildings. The
individual modules are lined up one after the other and stacked up in such a way
that they form highly dense clusters of buildings whose edges delimit the public
space. Thus they are not semipublic spaces in the manner of courtyards or common
stairwells.

Peter Barber’s Donnybrook
Quarter in London  and the Oostoever housing complex in Amsterdam by
Duinker van der Torre  are two examples of this type of structure. Whereas in
the Donnybrook Quarter  a two-story apartment with a terrace is placed over a
one-story unit with a garden, the typology mix of the Oostoever complex  is more
varied. The units are cleverly interlocked across different levels. Staggered
heights and recessions in the volume provide light to the lower units. Within
the porous spatial structure, the interior and exterior spaces of an individual
unit become a spatial continuum, while between various apartments there are
spaces that establish distance. The most important point of intersection in this
building typology is the entrance. It has to establish a balance between the
private apartment and the public space. The Amsterdam project responds to this
with a highly differentiated threshold space. Niches, minimized front gardens,
and changing materials accompany the transition from inside to outside. Loggias,
entrance platforms, stairs and landings, or small entry areas with low walls or
benches can all provide possible buffer zones. As zones of performative
compression and personal acquisition, such transition areas increase
communication between residents, the neighborhood, and passersby. One of the
finest examples of this “in-between turned into form”[9]is surely Hermann Hertzberger’s Haarlemmer Houttuinen Housing in Amsterdam.  The project quickly
developed into a lively residential neighborhood, in which the boundaries
between the categories of (public) street, (semipublic) courtyard space, and
private open area are blurred. In Barber’s complex, too, the neighborhood’s
car-free lanes, which widen into plazalike spaces, serve to expand the living
space and provide passersby with sites for public life.  Bay windows, balconies,
and terraces further reinforce the close connection of private and public space.
By means of addition, the juxtaposition of small units emerges as a rhythmic
image in the street space. The emphasis on the base zone in the Ooestoever
complex makes it most reminiscent of the classic multistory apartment
building.

The Matrix

As with the aforementioned projects, all fifteen apartments of the two-story
Stitch development in
Tokyo by Manabu Chiba are accessed directly from outside. The low, permeable
spatial structure forms a planar matrix of built and landscape elements. The
residential units are grouped around loosely framed courtyard spaces that are
freely accessible. Paths branch off a public road into the spaces in between the
buildings and lead to the individual front doors. The apartments on the upper
floor are accessed via open stairways. In contrast to cluster structures, the
charm of this site lies in the fluid transitions between public and semipublic
spaces with no clear borders between the two spheres. In a play of opening and
retreating, distance and proximity, breadth and narrowness, a continuous
sequence of spaces that tend to the public and others that tend to the private
nevertheless produces an intimate character. A clear boundary space is formed
only in relation to the private residential units, by means of precisely placed
spatial elements such as stairs, niches, and entry platforms. Carefully detailed
elements such as the freestanding mailboxes and outdoor lamps mark the private
territory in the entrance areas. The system of winding sequences of space is
continued within the apartments.  Manabu Chiba’s project can serve as an example
of how different conceptions of space can be clarified in different cultural
spheres. Whereas traditional European architecture can be described in terms of
volumes and linear boundary spaces, the Japanese conception of space focuses
more on the changing space between objects, for which it uses the term “MA”.
Arata Isozaki describes it as follows: “In Japanese, the concepts of space and
time have been simultaneously expressed by the word MA. MA, defined by Iwanami’s
Dictionary of Ancient Terms as ‘the natural distance between two or more things
existing in a continuity’ or ‘the space delineated by posts and screens (rooms)’
or ‘the natural pause or interval between two or more phenomena occurring
continuously,’ gives rise to both spatial and temporal formulations. Thus the
word MA does not describe the West’s recognition of time and space as different
serializations. Rather, in Japan, both time and space have been measured in
terms of intervals.”[10]“Interim space is the ephemeral constant in Japanese architecture and
perhaps of Japan’s entire aesthetic.”[11]Hence in Chiba’s project the crucial thing is the fact of enclosing, not
the space enclosed. This does not, however, mean the complete elimination of
spatial boundaries. In the sequence of spaces, the spaces in between become
transitions that can themselves be experienced in nuanced ways, with the present
space already suggesting the qualities of the next one.

Networks

Instead of “access” one could also speak of “communication.” (…) The buildings,
even though they are static objects, are always transformers and exchangers.
Joachim Krausse

Block, slab, point block, cluster, or matrix – the typology of urban context
establishes the “external” factors that influence the building structure and the
relationship between private, communal, and public. Nevertheless, housing forms
of very different character can be developed in each type, regardless of the
programmatic orientation and the design of the transitional spaces and transfer
zones. It is characteristic of contemporary residential architecture that
combinations and hybrid forms are increasingly common. The concepts are become
more differentiated in order to do justice to the ambitions and needs of a
society that is becoming increasingly diverse. Taking into account increasing
individualization, more and more projects are being built worldwide that focus
on variability within the building. Complex hybrid housing forms offer a
differentiated mix of a wide variety of housing and access types, mixing them
with a broad array of community facilities and additional functions, and
networking these structures with a wide variety of private and communal open
spaces. Such projects meet both the desire for individuality and the desire for
collectivity.

On the one hand, there are projects for thematic living: living for the elderly,
for family, or for singles, with subsidiary facilities designed for the group of
residents in question. Here the community is constituted within a highly
individualized society in terms of belonging to a specific group. Manabu Chiba
residential complex for musicians is one such example. On the other hand,
another approach is to integrate a wide variety of models for living within one
site, while at the same time developing new forms for living together.
Individuality and variability are the focus here. Many projects offer flexible
floor plans with use-neutral spatial zones (Diener und Diener’s residential complex on
Java-eiland),  enable occupants to finish the units individually
(Haerle Hubacher, [xxxxx]residential
development in Uster),  or unite a large spectrum of floor plans
within one architectural structure (Stücheli with Bünzli & Courvoisier,
Kraftwerk 1 in Zurich).
Indebted to the ideas of Le Corbusier and Adolf Loos, they seek to optimize the
qualities of the apartment building while giving the units as many features of
the single-family home as possible.

When balancing these two aspects, individuality and collectivity, internal
circulation becomes increasingly important. The paths through a building produce
a complex sequence of spatial transitions. That begins with the transition from
public space to the building and includes the approach, the arrival and entrance
into the building, the distribution to various rooms, mutual encounter, and
climbing up and circulating through the stairwells and corridors, entering and
exiting the private space of the apartment, and meeting in common spaces and
open areas. By modeling access and creating highly differentiated boundaries it
becomes possible to vary through design the degree of community within an
architectural structure.

In the case of Kazuhiro Kojima’s Space Blocks in Hanoi (2003),  the boundaries are almost entirely
eliminated. The spatial structure can be interpreted as a continuous residential
landscape but also as a continuous space of paths. Developing the building into
the third dimension and varying the elements between inside and outside results
in private niches for retreat, but the high density and proximity within this
fluid continuum of space would scarcely be conceivable in European residential
architecture, for example.

Often the access gallery is often called upon to meet a need to create
community-oriented forms of housing. As a place to spend time in threshold areas
between the apartment and the collective access routes, it offers, as we have
already seen in Erskine’s and Brinkman’s projects, a potential for communication
and can become a place for social interaction. Spatial proximity can, however,
result in the units being undesirably exposed to views inward. These projects
offer several approaches to designing the transition in terms of social program
and cultural sphere. The Brahmshof in Zurich by Kuhn Fischer und Partner (1988) offers the
greatest diversity in terms of spatial offerings. A continuous shelf system
leaning on the building houses the access corridors and balconies. The access
gallery is pulled away from the apartments and expands into terraces in front of
the eat-in kitchens with their generous windows. Pedestrian bridges lead to the
entrances, which are paired and recessed; stairs placed perpendicular to the
building lead to a terrace on the next floor, which provides access to two more
apartments.  This three-dimensionally networked structure can be used in many
ways and has been received well by the residents.

The access system at the Codan
Shinonome Canal Court by Riken Yamamoto in Tokyo (2003) also creates
unusual connections in the transition to the individual units. Against the
backdrop of changing lifestyles, the point of departure for the project was the
idea of combining living and working in variations on the “small office / home
office” type and thus break free of traditional structures of hermetically
sealed apartments. The deep slabs are accessed not by galleries but by rues
intérieurs, which provide access to the units on both sides and expand into
spacious two-story loggias.  The lack of distance resulting from open corridors
in front of the “inner” facades is addressed by giving the units a layered
sequence of spaces. Each apartment opens up via a glazed entrance element onto
the access areas, but a variable foyer space is placed in front of the space for
private retreat; many of the residents use this foyer as a small office. The
various spatial layers can be individually opened or closed by means of
staggered transparent and opaque sliding partitions, so that the boundaries
between private, semipublic, and public areas are continually shifted.

In addition to the role they play as a place of encounter between the individual
and the neighborhood, access corridors conceal another important aspect. In
contrast to vertical point access, they bring together a large number of units
into a group (VMX, senior
residence in Hoogvliet, 2007)  and make it possible to network to additional
collective spaces. In the case of the courtyard layout in Los Angeles by Koning
Eizenberg (2003),  a wide-ranging system of paths brings together the
neighborhood at one central point on the courtyard level, which makes it the
social center of the complex. The collective housing in Guangzhou by Urbanus (2008) takes this
approach even further. Here all of the residential floors are networked by
numerous communal and social facilities to produce a three-dimensional plexus.
The insular, solitary building becomes an autonomous “village within the city,”
intended to offer poor migrant workers protection against the adversities of the
city and create an intimate, comfortable living environment. Whereas the
collective spaces in the complex by Koning Eizenberg are intended to reinforce
the internal community, in Guangzhou there are stores and restaurants on the
ground floor to establish exchange with the public sphere. This aspect is far
more pronounced in the Sargfabrik in Vienna by BKK2 (1996).  The passages, paths, plazas,
bridges, and galleries of the dense courtyard landscape result in a diverse
sequence of open urban spaces that nevertheless have a private atmosphere. All
the semipublic areas can be used both by residents and by their visitors. The
common facilities such as the day-care center or spa, the cultural building, the
restaurant, and the roof terraces are all open to the neighborhood.

Parkrand, MVRDV, 2006, cross section, scale 1:500

The principle of a networked series of spaces with differentiations in the degree
of publicness is transferred to the scale of large buildings by MVRDV. Both
their Parkrand Building
(2006)  and the Silodam
(2003)  produce an almost “labyrinthine landscape, consisting of an arsenal of
variously graduated public, semipublic, and intimate spaces that are
dove-tailed, superimposed, or contrasted, blurring the transition between inside
and outside.”[12]These projects create their own living environment as a transitional zone
between the city and the apartment. The Parkrand Building (2006) can be grasped
as a single volume but also read as a complex of five towers with two connecting
levels. The various parts of the building articulate the large volume into
smaller neighborhoods and provide different types of access: atrium, vertical
point access, and gallery. The superblock employs the visual idiom of a stately
manor and provides residents on the base level, which is partially open to the
larger neighborhood, with three large common open spaces. As a “collective
living room,” they are a modern interpretation of Taut’s exterior living spaces.
The superblock, which is 135 meters long, 34 meters tall, and 34 meters deep,
houses 224 units of 23 different types.

This play with types of apartments and of access is taken even further by the
Silodam building in Amsterdam (2003). The 157 units are organized on one to
three floors, run the full depth of the building or have views to only one side,
and feature a wide variety of open areas such as winter gardens, balconies,
patios, and roof terraces to meet the diverse housing needs of a pluralistic
society. This maximized diversity is grouped into individual, internal
neighborhoods fit together into a complex network of access systems via
galleries, rues intérieurs, and open passages on the top floor. Direct access
from outside on the ground floor and second floor is also part of this
structure. “Variously designed approaches via ramps, footbridges, and wide-open
stairways form a three-dimensional street space that brings the various
residents into a community that fills this vertical city with life.”[13]Unlike the Parkrand Building, the Silodam draws the public space of the
city into the residence. On the ground floor, a public panorama terrace provides
views of Amsterdam’s watercourse. Steven Holl’s Linked Hybrid in Beijing (2009) even features
completely public bridges that are integrated into the residential buildings
between the twelfth and eighteenth floors. Developing urban qualities in the
interior of a building is by no means a new idea. Le Corbusier’s Unité
d’habitation in Marseilles (1952) already adopted this principle of uniting
architecture and urbanism. This vertical garden city offered space for 1,600
residents and initially integrated twenty-six different communal facilities
within the eighteen-story building, so that the interior of the building
functions like a small city. In comparison with contemporary projects, its
flexible structure minimizes private space in favor of the collective offerings
located on the shopping lane halfway up the building and on the roof
terrace.

Conclusion

Elementary spatial needs are manifested in housing. Private and public was the
polar relationship that determined the multistory apartment building of the late
nineteenth century, but it was soon expanded to include the quality of community
and ultimately shifted to individuality, community, and urbanism, whereby these
relationships interpenetrate and can no longer be demarcated from one another.
The boundaries between the relationships are variable, and housing should be as
well. That implies an understanding that the space is no longer understood
purely as a modulation of mass but rather connects it to human performance.[14]residential buildings can be developed as architecture, as built objects.
But residential buildings can also be defined as spaces that can be experienced,
as spaces that, as in the case of the Quinta Monroy residential neighborhood in
Iquique, inspire them to active behavior, organizing them according to places of
private, communal, and public situations. The boundaries are not fixed but can
be experienced and negotiated in ever-new ways.

Parkrand, MVRDV, 2006, cross section, scale 1:500

Quinta Monroy, Elemental, 2004, section, scale 1:200

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Originally published in: Ulrike Wietzorrek, Housing+: On Thresholds, Transitions, and Transparencies, Birkhäuser, 2014.