Description

Access:

Entrance halls connect the street side and the courtyard side; combination of external access gallery and central corridor, depending on the orientation of the building volume; separated from the apartments on one side; interior stairwell; stairwells lit by windows.

Interior space:

The structure permits highly differentiated outdoor spaces whose diverse qualities offer the residents an identity. A courtyard results from the geometry of the buildings, which extend to the boundaries of the lot; despite its self-contained appearance, it establishes various connections to its surroundings. The south-facing apartments are designed with external access corridors or row houses in the form of maisonettes, while the east- and west-facing apartments are designed with a central corridor. A bent corridor leads past the individual spaces into the generous living/dining room, which provides access to the loggia across its entire width. The bathrooms and kitchens generally face the external access gallery or the central corridor.

Exterior space:

Loggias adjacent to the living rooms; common outdoor space in the courtyard.

Morphology:

The volumes have four full stories; a penthouse would have been permitted but a decision not to include it was based on design reasons. The buildings are all-wood or partial-wood construction. The deliberate choice of construction materials is also reflected in the tectonic design based on the materialization and integration of the facades in the form of an untreated, vertically oriented larch shell, combined with colorful sliding shutters. The clear structure of the building, with no projections or recessions, is made possible by this concept for the material, since the wood parts can be expected to weather uniformly. The horizontal separation by means of larch planks reinforces the horizontal orientation of the building volume.

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Originally published in: Peter Ebner, Eva Herrmann, Roman Höllbacher, Markus Kuntscher, Ulrike Wietzorrek, Typology +: Innovative Residential Architecture, Birkhäuser, 2009.