Description

The apartments in this project were designed according to the “white box” principle: an unfinished unit with the essential sanitary, heating, and electric installations is purchased, after which each buyer can then determine the surface materials based on personal taste, the available budget, and how the spaces on the three levels will be used. Office spaces can for instance be built out on the ground floor, while the living and dining rooms are spread over two floors or combined. The top floor can be used as either a living room or bedroom.

In contrast to the standard convention where each level of a residential unit is directly above the other, or where all rooms are spread out on a single floor, the three levels of each apartment spring from one side of the building to the other, forming a linear cascade of spaces from one building segment to the next. They are connected by a series of interior staircases above and behind one another, which form a sort of backbone down the mid-section of the entire building. The result is very different unit types with surprising spatial organization and exterior views.

Complementing the inner access core – integrating the technical infrastructure that enables the flexible placement of sanitary rooms within each apartment segment and on all levels – and the 3-story units, which wind their way around one another, is another spatial layer. The difference between the permitted building volume and the interior volume is used to create a series of cut-out open spaces clad with wooden lamellae across most of the facade surface. Depending on the point of view, the building looks either like a solid sculptural object or an open structure.

---

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