Description
Bridges (pedestrians and cars) connect the buildings to the land; vertical point access, four units per floor; interior stairwell; no natural lighting in the stairwell.
The size and layout of the apartments results form the tapering silhouette of the staggered building volumes. All the apartments face two sides across a corner. After passing through a corridor, along which the individual rooms are aligned on one side and the bathrooms and storage spaces on the other, toward the center of the building, one enters the generous living space. Depending on their position, these living spaces open up onto a roof terrace that cuts into the building volume or onto a balcony that projects out of the building mass; on the opposite side, they connect to the kitchens. The apartments on the top floors are maisonettes.
Spacious balconies and roof terraces along the living rooms, and the corners of the volume are developed with particular care.
These five solitary volumes are built like freestanding sculptures, completely within the water of Lake Gooi; they line up with the edge of the water. The typical, distinctive profile of the sphinx, with its striking head and flattened back, results from maximizing the connection to the outdoors: the apartments have roof terraces facing south and generous panorama windows facing north, which transport the view of the lake into the apartments. The east and west sides of the silvery metal facades are perforated.
Drawings
Site plan, scale 1:5000
Apartment access diagram
Ground level, scale 1:500
Second level, scale 1:500
Third level, scale 1:500
Fourth level, scale 1:500
Fifth level, scale 1:500
Sixth level, scale 1:500
Sample apartment, scale 1:200
Longitudinal section, scale 1:500
Photos
Exterior view from the water
Originally published in: Peter Ebner, Eva Herrmann, Roman Höllbacher, Markus Kuntscher, Ulrike Wietzorrek, Typology +: Innovative Residential Architecture, Birkhäuser, 2009.