Description

The southern slope in the little town of Nüziders had been overdeveloped with apartment blocks, but acquired a new accent in the form of this compact complex of owner-occupied dwellings. Austere, uncompromising and at first glance rejecting the scale of the neighbouring blocks, the main building is staggered by following the slope. A second, much smaller building stands diagonally to it, parallel with the plot boundary. Thus bar and block create the tension of an urban double structure. The two buildings are so loosely arranged as to take up the character of a scattered village, but they still create an unambiguous place. The long linear quality of the dominating figure creates a sense of boundary with the outside, and its interplay with the smaller block forms a courtyard in the rear space.

This is where the principal access point is placed: glazed staircases, attached to the building and following the stagger pattern, lead into two dwellings per floor. Hence the units are divided very clearly into an ancillary space zone and a main zone, whose orientation is undoubtedly justified by the impressive Alpine panorama. It is striking that there are no walls as such in this south-facing band of spaces: the architects use closets as full-length room dividers. The scenery to the south can be experienced along the whole length of the bar, and is further enhanced by conservatories. As completely glazed ‘showcases’ they provide articulating elements in the plain perforated façade, and at the same time presentation spaces for the mountain chains on the horizon.

Here architects Baumschlager und Eberle succeed in doing two things above all, in combination with the staggered effect: firstly, intelligible division into units, which are then linked back to the scale of the surroundings in this miraculous fashion; then they also create significance, because this is what makes the buildings recognizable and memorable. This is additionally aided by the unusual combination of timber shingles from the Alpine region as façade material in combination with classically modern steel and glass. One outstanding element in this complex is the effect that despite the typological category of high-density housing as a coherent volume on a large scale, here the occupants are given the impression that they are living in their own ‘house’. The way units are added to the whole still makes it possible to create individual identity. Thus a way of living that had the potential to end up as an anonymous stack led to a new form of an individual terraced home of one’s own.

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Originally published in: Klaus-Peter Gast, Living Plans: New Concepts for Advanced Housing, Birkhäuser, 2005.