House F | Kronberg,Germany | Meixner Schlüter Wendt Architekten

Project data:

client: undisclosed

project size: approx. 300 sqm

start of construction: 2005

completion: 2007

Concept:

The starting point for the planning of the house was the goal of coupling the residential quality and the topography of the idyllic orchard lawn with the living rooms of the house.

Due to the stipulation of a pitched roof by the authorities and in connection with the individually designed roofs of the current and historical buildings in the neighbourhood, an interesting debate ensues on the subject of pitched roofs. From this, the concept of subdividing the new building into three zones develops:

1) The ground floor is completely submerged in the earth (cellar).

2) The garden floor, of which the base is oriented to the topography of the plot of land, is openly embedded in the orchard lawn.

3) Upon this, the corporeal top floor completes the contours of an ostensibly pitched roof type of house.

The associative ambivalent perception is, on the one hand, a normal pitched roof house, built on a slope, where the mass of the garden floor has been subtracted, and on the other hand, a levitated flying object, which thus accentuates the openness of the garden floor.

It is a good example for the idea that although architecture is always subject to static conditions, with use of a specific perception strategy and a visual association a building can get rid of its gravity.

The actual form is based on a synthesis of this associative form design with fundamental criteria such as function, construction, material, lighting etc.

The garden floor is completely glassed, in order to connect the interior with the orchard lawn in an unbroken flow. Also in a flowing manner, the orchard lawn is furnished both inside and outside with boxes and spaces.

The top story appears to be a levitated body. The sheet-metal cladding echoes the ambivalence of roof and vehicle.

Text and images from:Meixner Scluter Wendt Architekten