Description

Instead of creating a large courtyard, the street facade was dissolved into a rhythm of rounded, solid projections and open perforations, which allow daylight and the life of the city to penetrate deep into the apartments like a filter. Thanks to the rotation, the building appears to be composed of individual stacked volumes, thus setting it apart from the constraints of the urban block. The retail spaces on the ground floor are followed by a mezzanine level with vegetation: it serves as a horizontal circulation level to the seven (or eight) apartment levels and also acts as a calming filter.

The floor plan is divided into three sections: the service area with separate access lies to the rear, followed by the elongated living area – for which the central elevator offers a formal prelude – and parallel to this space a sequence of individual rooms with bathrooms. The front-to-back living area reaches from the patio on the courtyard side to the street facade, where it is extended by a room-size exterior space. Depending on weather conditions, this space can be opened toward the outside or toward the interior, entirely at the decision of the users.

Raised by a few steps and at right angles to this space are the loggias in front of the individual rooms. They are stepped back to ensure that all interior spaces have a connection with the outside. The dividing walls between the flats are the characteristic feature. They are found throughout the apartments and continue on the outside, materializing in the form of a ceramic skin, stretching into a protective curve, followed by a fluid transition into a homogeneous layer of light, wooden venetian blinds. The result: from the street perspective, there is very little evidence of the residential activities, which remain discrete, almost hidden behind an envelope of material and form.

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Originally published in: Oliver Heckmann, Friederike Schneider (eds.), Floor Plan Manual Housing, fourth revised and expanded edition, Birkhäuser, 2011.