Description
A house for a mother, her two daughters, two lodgers, and six dogs. The design’s point of departure was to analyze what kind of distances the occupants maintained and how they related to one another. The courtyard was to become the spatial and conceptual center of the project and was to remain open. The result was the arrangement of individual rooms clustered on a spiral ramp supported by steel columns. Each cluster has a bedroom, toilet, kitchen unit, and storage space, all grouped together behind a hall. The halls are separated from the courtyard by shoji screens.
Each room is demarcated by its unique position along the ramp, from which it draws its individual character. Only the kitchen/dining area and service areas – on the ground level – are for shared use. By opening sliding doors, the dining room dissolves and becomes part of the courtyard with only the cantilevered roof left to trace its phantom outline. The dogs play in the kidney-shaped yards underneath the raised house.
Drawings
Floor plan diagram, scale 1:500
Ground floor, scale 1:400
Second floor, scale 1:200
Section, scale 1:200
Photos
View of courtyard from above
View of courtyard from house interior
Originally published in: Oliver Heckmann, Friederike Schneider (eds.), Floor Plan Manual Housing, fourth revised and expanded edition, Birkhäuser, 2011.