Description

Access:

Passageway connects street side and the lower-lying garden side; vertical point access, two units per floor; interior stairwell; stairwells accessed from the garden side; stairwells lit by windows.

Interior space:

The living spaces of the standard floors are accessed by a separate central hallway; bathrooms and kitchens are located in the center of the volume and receive no natural light. Extending across the entire width of the apartment on the west side is a living/dining room with a small kitchen niche and a loggia as an extension to the living space. The individual rooms are arranged opposite that, depending on the size of the unit. Within the roofscape, the larger units are like urban villas with living rooms that receive light from more than one side and establish varied connections to the exterior. Here too the living/dining hall that extends the full depth of the building plays the central role in the concept for the space.

Exterior space:

Loggias and spatially distinctive roof terraces.

Morphology:

The principal articulation of the strata is horizontal. The building rests on a stone base and diversely designed entrance niches, bay windows, and gates establish a point of contact to the urban context and to the garden. The three floors above that form a serene, rectangular main volume. Horizontal bands of windows with deep reveals and loggia openings lend a rhythm to the anthracite-colored facade of prefabricated concrete components. The design of the roofscape is based on a free, sculptural play with cedar-paneled volumes with incisions and projections, which offer distinctive exterior spaces in the form of private roof terraces with panoramic views of the city center.

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