Description

 

The buildings are part of a larger conversion scheme for a former rail yard on the edge of a new park, which is intended to contribute to urban densification. The conceptual and aesthetic inspiration for the residential development was industrial buildings, whose structural and robust nature offers spatial possibilities for both living and work configurations that can be interpreted individually and rearranged by the user.

In building 3, the units are arranged around a room-sized central hallway in such a way that almost every other field within the spatial grid of the apartment is directly accessible. However, the flexibility in use for each room stems not only from this spatial configuration: by implementing a concrete skeletal structure, almost all the vertical planes can be filled in or changed at will – either as dividing walls or built-in furniture. The level of material transparency between adjacent rooms is similarly open to interpretation. In addition, the 1½-height spaces along the facade form particular focal points for the apartment.

The loft-like apartments in building 2 are each laid out over an entire floor and are directly accessed by elevator or external staircase. The placement of two interior mechanical cores divides the apartments into three parallel zones, providing a sense of how the floor plan could be organized without specifically defining the use of each space. For example, the hallway could be placed in the middle with enclosed functional zones at either end in order to leave the rooms along the facade as open as possible. Or more cores could be inserted on the apartment perimeter to create differently sized zones, while still ensuring free circulation within the apartment.

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Originally published in: Oliver Heckmann, Friederike Schneider with Eric Zapel (eds.), Floor Plan Manual Housing, fifth revised and expanded edition, Birkhäuser, 2018.