Description

Access:

Passageway connects the street side with the courtyard side; entrance from the courtyard side; vertical point access, three units per floor; interior stairwell; stairwell lit by windows.

Interior:

The internal structure of the floor plans suggests the large rooms of the classic bourgeois apartment. The rooms, however, are very open and flow into one another; most of the units feature a circular path. The outer part of that path is the result of the bathrooms and kitchens being open to the rooms, and hence a connecting path along the facade is left open. Compressed behind this calm and unruffled structure are a variety of forms of an open, urban lifestyle.

Exterior:

Balconies and terraces facing a quiet inner courtyard; communal roof terrace.

Morphology:

The volume, its window openings and placements, and its unusual colors emphasize the corner situation of the perimeter block construction and accentuate the hybrid-use building on the street side. Despite the narrow streets, the apartments have huge windows and thus not only expose the apartments to the public but conversely make the street part of the apartment. In keeping with this atmosphere, the sinks and the kitchen face the glass, and the bathrooms have been moved up against the facade like furniture. This concept for urban living thematizes the central location in the midst of the city’s nightlife and presumes residents have a relaxed relationship with the lively urban space.

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Originally published in: Peter Ebner, Eva Herrmann, Roman Höllbacher, Markus Kuntscher, Ulrike Wietzorrek, Typology +: Innovative Residential Architecture, Birkhäuser, 2009.