Description

Part of a larger new residential development, seven houses form a trapezoidal block, in which both the block as a whole and the individual houses are emphasized. All sides of the block – whether part of a building or the perimeter wall – are enclosed with the same brickwork. The gable facades are oriented to the narrow sides of the block while the eaves sides face its long sides. Two freestanding houses occupy the orthogonal corners while the remaining volumes translate the form of the block into five trapezoidal row houses. Orthogonally offset to one another on their back garden side, they adhere at the front to the oblique block edge, thus forming a striking, zigzagging roofline along the street. In this way, a correlation between the articulation of the block and the individual houses is created.

A feature of particular interest in the mid-block house type is a split-level living area that extends vertically through the entire building. It is arranged around the triangular void that occurs between the angled street facade and the orthogonal orientation of the rest of the house. The staircase ascends through this space, following the geometry of the surrounding walls and connecting the eat-in kitchen on the ground floor, with its large window to the private yard, to the living room above that overlooks the street. Offset by a few further steps, a corridor open to this living space leads to children’s bedrooms, while the next flight of stairs goes up to the master bedroom and bathroom on the top floor. A maximum amount of spatial effect is thus generated in an extremely compact volume.

---

Originally published in: Oliver Heckmann, Friederike Schneider with Eric Zapel (eds.), Floor Plan Manual Housing, fifth revised and expanded edition, Birkhäuser, 2018.