Description

Brandlhuber+ Emde, Burlon together with Muck Petzet Architects have built a programmatic continuation of the much-acclaimed Brunnenstrasse studio building in Berlin-Wedding. The client’s wish list included “creative-commercial” studios, exhibition space and gastronomy, as well as promoting community and publicity. And all this under the aegis of a 1958 decree that does not permit residential construction on the property. A pity, really! The architects have responded with a building that is remarkable in that, alongside the aforementioned requirements, it also creates conditions that are quite conducive to living in. Both the fire protection and energy efficiency measures comply in all respects with the regulations for residential construction. One could argue that this all but invites misappropriation for other purposes, Of course, the extent to which it is actually used for sleeping, cooking, loving and living alongside working, is down to the individual tenants.

The monumental concrete hillside that rises between the S-Bahn tracks and the gently ascending Böttgerstrasse is hard to appraise in the context of traditional, classical notions of aesthetics. In its proportions, it pays no heed to the golden section, it ignores the classical division of column orders, and noble materials are nowhere to be seen. The aim was instead to maximise space with the minimum of means (and cost). It is space in its purest form, or what the architects call “the elegance of the raw construction”. Lightweight stud walls of plasterboard and maritime pine divide the floors into four interlocking units which are open only at their northeast and southwest ends where they are fully glazed. The units themselves have no separating walls. The only aspect that imposes a certain degree of zoning is the room depths which range between 11 and 26 metres, suggesting that uses not so dependent on light, such as computer workplaces, should take place in the centre of the plan. Two concrete cores house the installation shaft and bathrooms as well as provide lift access to two units. The main access, however, is via two dramatic external staircases at the rear that connect the floors via their terraces. At more than six metres deep, these terraces are the means of access to the interior via floor-to-ceiling sliding doors. The double-height ground floor with an intermediate gallery level provides space for a larger office unit, catering and an art room. The extremely deep floor plans are a product of §34 of the building code and its reference to the specific character of the immediate surroundings: the building’s immediate neighbour, a typical U-shaped Berlin building that encloses an inner courtyard, determines the depth of the building. The facade steps back towards the bottom, reducing the almost 40 m building depth to something more usable while also creating a covered, semi-public forecourt facing the street. The building code stipulated a building bordering the street, and by lining either side with an unbroken firewall, which meanders slightly following the irregular course of the site boundary, it makes maximum use of the site. The floor heights and the overall building heights result from the two striking external staircases, which in turn correspond exactly to the legislative specifications of DIN 18065 for staircases. The differentiation between public, semi-public and private areas also deviates considerably from the norm. The Terrassenhaus dictates a degree of proximity that its neighbours either already cherish or must first learn to come to terms with. By dispensing with a separate enclosed staircase accessible from the street and elevators that can only be used with a key, the architecture implicitly pushes its residents to use the interconnected outdoor spaces. All terraces and the roof are also public spaces – which makes them the subject of permanent negotiation. Visitors to the yoga studio on the first floor, for example, routinely tie their dogs to the terrace while they take their course, and the roof with its wonderful panoramic view of the surroundings is a favourite meeting place for young people from the neighbourhood. And because the terraces are part of the fire escape route, it is not possible to separate off the terraces for each user. As a consequence, the tenants have turned to informal “zoning by plant pota”, resulting in a friendly greening competition among neighbours. The users do have recourse to one means of achieving a degree of privacy: they can draw a heavy geotextile curtain, made of silver-vaporised material, as a means of shading against strong sunlight and views while being moderately transparent from inside.

Originally published in Bauwelt 23.2018, pp. 48-57, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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