Single Family Houses 9783034615174, 9783764372774

Table of contents :
The Single-Family House: Myth or Reality
Individual and Sustainable-Single-Family Houses for Our Time
A Small House with a Garden
Table of projects according to materials used
House on Lake Starnberg, Germany
Two Semi-Detached Houses in Munich, Germany
Summer House with Studio in Vejby, Danmark
House in Nova Scotia, Canada
House near New York, USA
House in Toronto, Canada
House in Kawasaki, Japan
Weekend House near Tokyo, Japan
Weekend House in Australia
House in Münster, Germany
House in Hernals, Vienna, Austria
House in Almelo, Netherlands
House in Osaka, Japan
House in Tokyo, Japan
House near Lugano, Switzerland
House in Li Curt, Switzerland
House in Munich, Germany
House in Erfurt, Germany
House in Italy
House in Berlin, Germany
House in Moledo, Portugal
Architects
Authors
Bibliography
Picture credits

Citation preview

in ∂

Single Family Houses New enlarged edition

Christian Schittich (Ed.)

Birkhäuser Birkhäuser Edition Edition Detail Detail

in ∂ Single Family Houses

in ∂

Single Family Houses New enlarged edition Christian Schittich (Ed.) with essays contributed by Rüdiger Krisch Gert Kähler

Edition DETAIL – Institut für internationale Architektur-Dokumentation GmbH & Co. KG München Birkhäuser – Publishers for Architecture Basel . Boston . Berlin

Editor: Christian Schittich Co-Editors: Ingrid Geisel, Andrea Wiegelmann Editorial services: Kathrin Draeger, Alexander Felix, Astrid Donnert, Cordula Rau Translation (German/English): Peter Green (pp. 42–183), Elizabeth Schwaiger (pp. 8–41, 184–191) Drawings: Kathrin Draeger, Marion Griese, Emese Köszegi, Andrea Saiko, Martin Hemmel, Norbert Graeser DTP: Peter Gensmantel, Andrea Linke, Roswitha Siegler, Simone Soesters

The book is a cooperation between DETAIL – Review of Architecture and Birkhäuser – Publishers for Architecture

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA Die Deutsche Bibliothek – CIP-Einheitsaufnahme In detail: single family houses: concepts, planning, construction / Christian Schittich (ed.). – Basel; Boston; Berlin: Birkhäuser, 2005 Dt. Ausg. u. d. T.: Im Detail: Einfamilienhäuser ISBN 10: 3-7643-7278-8 ISBN 13: 978-3-7643-7278-1

© 2005 Institut für Internationale Architektur-Dokumentation GmbH & Co. KG, P.O. Box 33 06 60, D-80066 Munich, Germany, and Birkhäuser – Publishers for Architecture, P.O. Box 133, CH-4010 Basel, Switzerland This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in data banks. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained.

Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp (TCF ∞) Printed in Germany by Kösel GmbH & Co. KG, Altusried-Krugzell

ISBN 10: 3-7643-7277-X ISBN 13: 978-3-7643-7277-4 987654321

Contents

The Single-Family House: Myth or Reality Christian Schittich

8

Individual and Sustainable – Single-Family Houses for Our Time Rüdiger Krisch

12

A Small House with a Garden Gert Kähler

28

Table of projects according to materials used

42

House on Lake Starnberg, Germany Fink + Jocher, Munich

44

Two Semi-Detached Houses in Munich, Germany Werner Bäuerle, Constance

52

Summer House with Studio in Vejby, Danmark Henning Larsens Tegnestue A/S, Copenhagen

60

House in Nova Scotia, Canada MacKay-Lyons, Halifax

66

House near New York, USA SR+T, Sislian Rothstein and Joel E. Towers, New York

72

House in Toronto, Canada Shim • Sutcliffe Architects, Toronto

78

House in Kawasaki, Japan Kazunari Sakamoto, Tokyo

84

Weekend House near Tokyo, Japan Office of Ryue Nishizawa, Tokyo

92

Weekend House in Australia Sean Godsell, Melbourne

98

House in Münster, Germany Gabriele Andreae, Münster • Ulrich Kötter, Münster

104

House in Hernals, Vienna, Austria Henke und Schreieck Architekten, Vienna

112

House in Almelo, Netherlands Dirk Jan Postel, Kraaijvanger • Urbis, Rotterdam

120

House in Osaka, Japan Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Tokyo

128

House in Tokyo, Japan Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects, Tokyo

134

House near Lugano, Switzerland Giraudi Wettstein Architekten, Lugano

140

House in Li Curt, Switzerland Conradin Clavuot, Chur with Norbert Mathis, Chur

146

House in Munich, Germany Thomas M. Hammer and Doris Schmid-Hammer, Munich

152

House in Erfurt, Germany Silvia Britz, Erfurt

160

House in Italy Döring Dahmen Joeressen, Düsseldorf

166

House in Berlin, Germany David Chipperfield, London/Berlin

172

House in Moledo, Portugal Eduardo Souto de Moura, Oporto

178

Architects

184

Authors

190

Bibliography

191

Picture credits

192

The Single-Family House: Myth and Reality Christian Schittich

The myth of the single-family house is hard to explain with rational arguments alone. It remains the most popular form of housing – every client’s dream – despite continuing criticism on the part of ecologists and urban planners. What use is it to comment on the wasteful consumption of land and resources, the enormous efforts to create access and the resulting traffic congestion in the face of a basic human need, ancient values and emotions that have been glorified at times? Ever since the primitive hut – the Ur-form of manmade shelter – the private house has symbolized a roof over the head, the desire for privacy, for a piece of land we can call our own. At the same time, it is a status symbol, an expression of personal freedom and individuality. For within our own four walls we can do as we please, with no interference. Here we can realize our personal ideas. But how close do we get to this sought after individuality? All across the country, sprawling new developments present an identical picture: “dream homes” set into the landscape without imagination, all somehow alike with their recesses and bay windows, stuck-on mullions and red concrete roofing tiles. There is little evidence of professional input in the design, a state of affairs confirmed by industry statistics: over 80 per cent of all private houses in Germany are built without the participation of an architect. The figure is probably similar in most other European countries. In no other planning task is architect participation as low as in this. On the other hand, the single-family house is perhaps the ideal building type for a representation of the architecture of the twentieth century. What would the history of building be without the villas by Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, without the experimental private architects’ homes of Buckminster Fuller, Craig Ellwood, or Charles and Ray Eames, without the early houses by Botta, Meier or Ando? (See also, “A Small House with a Garden”, pp. 28ff.) Since the early days of Modernism many innovations – in concept and in construction – are closely linked to the single-family house, so uniquely suited to architectural analysis because of its clearly defined program. The Single-Family House as a Planning Task Building a private house is a topic that most architects address, often at the beginning of their career: frequently, their first independent project is to build a small private house for relatives or friends. The task continues to accompany them throughout their career and loses none of its fascination, the many contradictions and the high planning effort for a comparatively low fee notwithstanding. After all, building a

single-family house is a relatively manageable task by comparison to other, increasingly complex challenges. With this task, the designer can still give personal attention to every detail, from the foundation to the roof. It affords room for experimentation, an opportunity to change traditional ideas on interior spaces and to test building methods, aspects that are less likely with building tasks on a larger scale. Some of the fascination also lies in the fact that all architects can easily relate to the needs of the users since they bring their own personal experience of “living” to the table – a dynamic that does not apply to all building types. But what inspires some clients to consult an architect for planning their house? They could just as easily purchase a standard contractor-built home or a pre-fabricated house. Without taxing the imagination, these choices offer predictable results, presented in catalogues or model homes. Commissioning an architect means not only exposing oneself to his or her ideas. It is also likely to provoke some degree of confrontation with one’s neighbours. For experience has shown that truly contemporary house design that is noticeably different from the surrounding sea of look-alikes invariably spells trouble. Initial perplexity at the difference soon turns into open conflict should the house attract the attention of the experts, followed by the media and photographers. It doesn’t matter whether the difference lies in a truly individual solution, a contemporary reinterpretation or a discrete adaptation of local building traditions. For in no other planning task is the discrepancy between the client’s conventional notions and the architect’s vision as blatant as when it comes to habitation, where people are at their most conservative. It is a paradox of our time that most people reject truly contemporary design for their homes. The same people seek out the latest fad in the design of cars or stereo systems, think nothing of installing satellite dishes and computers in their rustic homes, or covering the roof with solar cells and employing a computer driven home management system to regulate the heating, water the garden or adjust the blinds by mobile phone. What then is the motivation for engaging an architect? Cultural interests, perhaps, or a desire for something unique. Or is it savings or even the allure of a customized home? There are many good reasons that speak for entrusting the task to an architect. One the other hand, the architect needs a courageous and open-minded client to achieve an excellent result. Many classic examples in the history of architecture bear witness to this fact. Unfortunately the clients, who frequently 9

assume a lifelong debt to finance their homes, are rarely willing to extend the necessary trust to their architect. It is far more common that clients come to the architect with concrete ideas – based on conventional views of tasteful living – and merely ask the architect to set their ideas down on paper and handle the various procedures and permits with the building authorities. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that many of the houses which attract the attention of the experts are the architects’ own homes (and several examples presented in this volume fall into this category). For only when they build for themselves are architects free to work without interference, with the exception, naturally, of building authorities. Organization and Plan Despite technical innovation and social change, the basic program of the standard single-family house has remained more or less the same over the past fifty years. The only noticeable change has occurred in the size of the rooms, that is the increased floor space per person. The single-family house is still geared towards the nuclear family, even though fewer such families exist. (See also, “Individual and Sustainable Single-Family Houses for Our Time”, pp. 12ff.) Typical “single-family” houses are increasingly inhabited by groups of individuals who simply share for convenience, by childless couples with two incomes, or by singles. At any rate, people in the last two categories are usually better placed to afford a spacious home than most families of five, whose need for the space is greater. In selecting the buildings featured in this volume, we took care to present a great variety of plans and organizational forms. In addition to both modest and generous houses, we have included others that are not necessarily used as family homes in the traditional sense, although definitions of the latter are becoming more elastic. Other examples still, show homes with a separate granny apartment or a work area. The home office, which can play an important role in diminishing traffic congestion and which enables working parents to remain at home with their families, will become increasingly important in future. New technologies and their impact on how work is performed (telework via the Internet, for example) have created the conditions for these changes. In countries with comparable standards of living all across the world, single-family houses are remarkably similar in plan despite cultural and climatic differences. Generally speaking, the standard architect-planned house is a two-storey struc10

ture with a relatively open ground floor plan and enclosed individual rooms on the top floor. Naturally, a good house is designed to accommodate the needs of its inhabitants, even when they change over the course of a lifetime: children will eventually leave home, couples may separate, invalid grandparents may move in… Nor can the everyday be reduced to a few predictable functions such as cooking, eating and sleeping. Another factor is the lifecycle of most houses, spanning several generations. Even the direct heirs of the second generation often have different requirements or simply wish to realize their own ideas of living. All this speaks for open, flexible solutions. All examples of buildings in this volume are distinguished by their modern and contemporary design. Moreover they all react consciously to their environment, be it by integration or by creating a deliberate contrast. Others ignore the surrounding neighbourhood or seal themselves off from it. One such example is Tadao Ando’s house for the Nomi family in Osaka (pp. 128ff.), which is also a model of successful and versatile organization within a minimal space. Altogether, the selection confirms that contemporary architecture is dependent neither on material nor on a specific roof shape. Construction and Material The prevention of structural damage is but one of many tasks of a carefully considered detailed plan. The influence on form is another important factor: details in construction largely determine the external appearance of a house; they define the power of its expression and its character. It is one of the essential goals of this book to demonstrate how consciously and sensibly employed details can be used to translate a conceptual design idea, articulate volumes and structure facades. And how carefully understated details can produce a reduced, perhaps even two-dimensional effect. The selection also gives appropriate weight to the primary building materials, that is, wood and steel, concrete and brick. Each of these materials has unique qualities that result in a different expression. The choice of a particular building material is driven by aesthetic as well as functional considerations (for example, flexibility in skeleton construction). Continuation of regional traditions or local availability of materials may also play a role. None of these building materials is inherently better or worse; they simply have different characteristics. Still, architectdesigned private houses often betray a preference for one or

the other material. Currently there seem to be many stunning single-family houses in wood. Exposed concrete and steel also continue to be popular materials. Conversely, projects realized in masonry have become rare, with the exception of Central Europe, where most singlefamily houses are still constructed of bricks. Are there details exclusive to the single-family house? Generally speaking no, as such details are not directly dependent on building type. Still, there are specific solutions that are predominantly applied to residential building. This is true for certain details in the facade (window junctions, sliding shutters, roof edges) and for the interior work. All construction drawings reproduced in the book are intended for conceptual inspiration only and not as a direct guide to building. Every building task has individual conditions and requires specific solutions. This is especially true when examples are taken from countries with different climate conditions, cultural environments and building codes. At the same time, the international perspective is especially interesting and illuminating in this study. In considering how similar issues are solved elsewhere, we can reflect on our own positions and perhaps even let go of some ideas we have become too used to. All drawings were researched and revised specifically for this publication – both to ensure readability and to communicate all essential information that may not have been included in the workshop drawings they are based on. The focus was not to show isolated details but to illustrate comprehensive sections that include all pertinent aspects. Some of the projects presented have previously been published in connection with other topics featured in DETAIL magazine. They are shown here in a new context, for which purpose both texts and drawings have been revised and expanded. For this second edition, “Single-Family Houses – Concepts, Planning, Construction” has been fully revised and expanded by additional current examples. We have taken great care to establish an even closer link to the practice and to this end Rüdiger Krisch has rewritten his contribution “Individual and Sustainable – Single-Family Houses for Our Time” and expanded it into a planning guide (see pp. 12ff.). The tremendous success of the first edition, which is distributed worldwide in numerous languages, has inspired the publisher and the editorial department to respond to the undiminished currency of this topic.

1.2

1.1 1.2

Traditional house in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, Japan Residential house near Munich, 2003; architects: 03 München

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12

Individual and Sustainable – Single-Family Houses for Our Time Rüdiger Krisch

People, trees – and houses. Early childhood drawings are but one of the many indications of the importance of the house in our value system. Many expression that contain the words “house” or “home” demonstrate how deeply it has taken root: at home, housewife (or househusband), home comforts, household. Clearly, the dream of a house has been lodged deep in our conscientiousness: this is the only explanation for the fact that the single-family house has been number one on the wish list of housing types for decades, although – or perhaps precisely because – it is a wish that will remain unrealistic and out of reach for many people who participate in such polls. It is remarkable how slowly some dreams and ideas, and some realities too, change despite fundamental changes in society. The functional design of an average apartment follows the requirements of new uses and lifestyles with considerable delay and the basic aesthetics of habitation have remained remarkably constant for decades. The apparent contradiction contained in this statement is easily explained: social studies confirm that people regard their private sphere as a bulwark against an inhospitable world and the rapid, uncontrollable changes that are a part of it. The home is the locus of privacy whose form and evolution each and every one of us is able to determine. May the world spin out of control – at least home sweet home is as it has always been.1 In his essay, Gert Kähler calls this the “desire for an ideal world.”2 To achieve this security, many people strive for home ownership. The proof lies in the many savings accounts with building societies, where people work hard to accumulate large sums to fulfil their dream of their own home. The public’s interest in the topic is evident, too, in the priority that all manner of media give to housing and home improvements. Real estate, be it new or used, is still regarded as a save investment and one of several strategies to secure financial stability in old age. Terms Unlike other languages, “living” in colloquial English means both “to be alive” and “to reside or dwell.” But living or dwelling is more than just one of many activities we engage in on any given day. The etymology of the German “wohnen” provides an interesting clue in the root “wunian,” which contains the meaning “to be safe and secure.” It is no accident that the greatest chasm in society is that between home-dwellers and the homeless. Shelter is a basic need. The protection of the

private sphere is an internationally recognized human right; in Germany and other countries, it is a constitutional right.3 This is an indication of the high value society places on the right to privacy. At the same time, it stands for the protection of the one area in which each person has a profound influence in contrast to other areas, public spaces and especially the workplace. The house as an independent construct symbolizes this sphere of influence. The front- and back yard defines boundaries and delineates them in an unmistakable manner. Finally, this spatial delineation also provides a clear marker of “mine” and “yours,” an important factor in the house as the ultimate expression of ownership. Until a few years ago, the word household was synonymous with family. The nuclear family consisting of husband, wife and children is still the most common form of human cohabitation. Into the nineteenth century, the most common household was comprised of the extended family, where several branches and all generations of a family lived interdependently under one roof. Most people’s gainful work was not separated from their home, there did not exist a clear division between work life and private life. Employees, associates, apprentices and guests were all part of the household. Industrialization and the subsequent profound changes in the structure of gainful employment scattered the typical extended family into the now common grouping consisting of separate, small two-generational nuclear families, whose physical centre of habitation became dependent on the location of the workplace. Simultaneously, the father’s role became more rigidly defined as that of provider working outside of the house, and the mother’s as that of “housewife” working inside the house. The world is currently experiencing a change, the far-reaching consequences of which are comparable in scale to those of the industrial revolution. The liberalization of society and of individual lifestyles is especially relevant to habitation. Today, various forms of living together and cohabitation exist side by side with increasing equality and the nuclear family – hitherto defined as the standard – has become but one among several models. Each individual can choose among these styles of living with a fair amount of freedom. Over time, most people’s residential biography 4 will include experiences in several constellations: childhood in the nuclear family, training or student life in a communal setting, early professional phase as a single, various partnerships usually without 2.1

House in Berlin, 2000; Becher + Rottkamp Architekten

13

2.2

establishing a joint household and, finally, founding their own nuclear family, which is, however, not always maintained into old age. As a consequence, the traditional nuclear family has eroded into a number of even smaller units, from childless couples in shared or individual homes to single-parent families to singles. Most of these forms of living have always existed; in the past, they were simply statistically less relevant. What is notable is how rapidly these types of household are increasing and how socially acceptable they have become. In Germany and Switzerland, for example, one third of all households are already single-person households, in some large cities this figure has risen to over 50 per cent.5 Changes in demographics also point to a necessary change in the housing market. The population is aging, and there is no foreseeable end to this development. No doubt, this will lead to a further increase in small households and a greater demand for low-maintenance, barrier-free living space. On the other hand, cutbacks to social services and the increasing demands placed on the gainfully employed may create a lack of time and resources that would once again promote the formation of larger household units: various models for shared living and a renewed approach among friends and members of different generations for the purpose of distributing household duties and childcare point in this direction. Even though these trends are still insignificant statistically – and although their popularity is questionable – the housing market will have to respond to the changes in demand. Today, even single-family houses are no longer in demand solely by families in the traditional sense. Strategies

2.3

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As with any other design task, three overarching aspects must be explored in the context of single-family houses: first, the conditions of the site such as location, orientation and topography; second, the client specifications such as user profile, spatial program and cost; and third, the visual and design ideas of the client and the planner(s). The necessary decisions with regard to building types, materials and construction follow from meeting the requirements of these aspects. In the following, readers will find observations on the building components of a house, on the criteria that should be considered in planning the design and on the solutions that are presented in the featured examples. In principle, a client can present the architect with two types of specifications, which are referred to as the spatial program and – to put it simply – the script. A spatial program lists all the rooms a house is to contain. It is usually closely linked to the client’s previous experience of living spaces and can thus become a solid basis for the planning process. However, a spatial program of this kind tends to repeat existing situations with all their shortcomings and rarely leads to a meaningful improvement of the habitation and living situation. A script, on the other hand, offers the opportunity to think about the future use of the house etc., without allocating rooms. During this process it is helpful to play out a variety of scenarios – everyday life with or without children, feast days and celebrations, seasons – and to explore them with regard to their impact on one’s life. On the basis of such a script, intuitive planners know how to develop a ground plan that is a greater conceptual departure from the client’s previous experience.

Use and Building Components Before launching into a discussion of the problems and opportunities associated with planning a contemporary single-family house, it is worthwhile to look at the building components commonly used to assemble it.6 “Living” as an activity in its own right – differentiated from eating, working and sleeping – is a product of the evolution and gradual expansion of free time that is not given over to working for a wage or housework. Our contemporary idea of a living room, often thought of as the centre of a home, has had several precursors. The villa and the country house, both models for the contemporary single-family house, contained several living-rooms of equal status: the “gentleman’s room,” a smoking room, a library and, less frequently, a ladies room, as well as a separate dining room. The fact that all these rooms, with the exception, perhaps, of the dining room, have today been absorbed into a single room, is an indicator of necessary reductions in terms of floor area, but also of a decrease in formality in everyday life. Over the past decades, the living room has experience what one might call an identity crisis: although its representative role remains important, its communicative function has been weakened. This has to do in part with changes in how we design our leisure time, but also with the importance we have given to media: whereas the radio could still be integrated into the furnishings without drastic changes, the television introduced a new, external influence into the living space. Even sofa and armchair arrangements, previously the centrepiece of a home, are used less to sit across from one another in conversation than to sit side by side with an optimal view of the TV screen conveniently housed in the wall unit on the opposite side.7 The space set aside for taking meals has always been the core of the home, even when “living” as an activity of residential life was still unknown. All members of a household would meet at mealtimes and any necessary communication within the household occurred on these occasions. Recently, this core function of the dining table is greatly diminished as family members pursue increasingly individualized lives and different schedules. Until recently, eating in the kitchen was unpopular because leisure and (domestic) work were separated even within the home. In this context, the kitchen was pushed from its central place in a family’s life and the home to a marginal position. Of all the rooms in the home, it is the kitchen that has probably undergone the greatest change as floor plans evolved. Prior to the middle-class, single-family house, it was the uncontested centre of every house – and the close association between the words “home” and “hearth” is no accident. In the medieval house, the kitchen was usually the only room that could be heated in winter, and the housework done there took up much more time than it does today. The kitchen first disappeared from the centre of family life in the private homes of the upper middle class, when it was banished, together with the servants, to a separate wing. Instead, the living area assumed a “cozy” atmosphere where housework was out of place. Ultimately the same tendency entered into the average family apartment: the kitchen as the place where “housework” is carried out was pushed further 2.2 2.3 2.4

2.4

Frankfurt kitchen, Grete Schütte-Lihotzky, 1923 Plans, house in Benediktbeuren, 1997; Fink + Jocher House in Benediktbeuren, 1997; Fink + Jocher

15

and further to the edge of the home, reduced to its most basic function – food preparation – and minimized in terms of size. The Frankfurt kitchen designed by architect Grete Schütte-Lihotzky (see fig. 2.2) is unquestionably impressive for its ergonomic optimization. Still, it is also an expression of the gradual devaluation of the kitchen in the average home floor plan.8 The tendency continues to this day, even in very large single-family houses. There are some indications that the kitchen will in future once again be the centre of the house. One contributing factor may be the changes in the distribution of labour within the family and in society as a whole. With the growing equality of women as breadwinners, housework is increasingly shared by all members of a household and the kitchen, as the hub of housework, is once again a meeting place for the entire family. Moreover, the generation that is currently in the process of acquiring property, tends to have a less formal lifestyle. It has once again become the “in” thing to eat in the kitchen, also with guests and even when unwashed pots and pans are still in clear view and cooking odours fill the room. The expression “eat-in kitchen”, defining a cooking area with a space for a generous dining table and commonly used in the real estate sector, succinctly defines this bundling of functions. In many families the eat-in kitchen has already replaced the traditional living room as a family room. The bathroom, on the other hand, is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of housing construction. To begin with, bathing and toilet facilities moved from the outdoors into the basement, complemented by “dependencies” in the form of wash stands and chamber pots in the bedrooms. When water pipes were installed in homes, bathrooms moved upstairs, conveniently close to living areas and bedrooms. At first, these bathrooms, like the functional kitchens designed around the same time, were minimal in function and size and pushed to the margins of the floor plan. Their status began to change in the 1980s, when the function of the bathroom for necessary hygiene was expanded into one for body care with an adjacent or even integrated fitness area. With growing body awareness, large bathtubs or whirlpools for the entire family, as well as all kinds of exercise machines have found their way into the bathrooms of discerning users. The expression “home spa” is entirely appropriate in this context. According to real estate agents, the bathroom, its size and equipment, is an important criterion for quality in the housing market. The individual room represents the retreat for each individual within the collective private sphere of the home. Ever since apartments and homes can be heated as a whole, bedrooms can also serve for other functions throughout the day. Changes in society indicate that the individualization of lifestyles and schedules of individual members of a household will continue and clearly defined areas for retreating within the home will thus become all the more important. Individual rooms are to some extent miniature homes within the home, although they must also meet the corresponding requirements. To be fully usable, they must be adequate in size so that, in addition to sleeping, there is space for a workstation, an area for relaxation and still plenty of room for movement, or play. In the United States, a country where households tend to move more frequently, a walk-in closet equipped with 16

shelves and a clothes rack is a standard feature in most bedrooms. This facilitates the move, because there is no need to transport large wardrobes. The separation of work and home is a relatively new phenomenon that emerged only in the wake of industrialization. Prior to that period, work, eating and sleeping occurred at the same location for most households and leisure in the modern sense was simply non-existent. The conditions for privacy and intimacy to evolve in the home were a result of work being “outsourced” to factories, workshops and offices.9 For some time now, we can observe a surprising change: after decades of a clear separation, paid work is gradually finding its way back into the private home. It is still an exaggeration to speak of a trend – the habit of separating work and home is still too deeply entrenched in our lifestyle. Still, a growing number of people are performing their work at home, at least to some degree. 10 Such choices aren’t always voluntary, as in the case when family and professional duties overlap. In many households, this is the only solution to manage the different timetables in the lives of all the family members. Naturally, there are consequences for the home or apartment. An additional room designated as “home office” is the most sensible solution. The requirements for dimension and design are similar as for any other individual room – and in the case of school-age children their bedrooms already have to function as work or study rooms. At the other end of the spectrum lies a work area that is integrated into or overlaps with the private area of the home. The impact of the new media contributes to this development. The home computer is not only used for work and communication, but also for entertainment. The yard that surrounds a detached house is private outdoor space. It should be planned according to the same criteria – listed hereafter – as the house itself, if it is to serve, on the one hand, as a buffer zone to the street and a transition zone for informal contacts with neighbours, and, on the other hand, as an outdoor living and leisure space for the family. The front yard must accommodate many utilitarian objects, from car to bicycles, toys and garden tools to garbage cans. And finally, when purchasing a property one should remember that yards require a fair amount of work, which may become a challenge with advancing age. Criteria In the following, several aspects relevant to the design and planning of a house are discussed in greater detail. Orientation Until the 1920s, the cardinal directions played a subordinate role in the orientation of residential building. The orientation of the living areas was given precedence – usually towards the street. Modernists architects replaced this dogma with another: orienting living areas towards the sun. The orientation of the entire structure and thus the orientation of the living areas was a contentious topic from the very beginning: some architects favoured east-west orientation for the entire building and due south orientation for all living areas to allow as much sunshine as possible to penetrate into these rooms. Others promoted a north-south orientation for the structure and hence rooms that would face either east or west, because sunlight penetrating into the rooms from both

sides of the building would result in well-lit interiors, providing an opportunity for greater building depths.11 Today, the decision with regard to orientation is predetermined in most cases by the outline and orientation of the lot and the specifications of the development plan. The importance of orientation is often overrated by comparison to other advantages and disadvantages of a house or a lot: if the most attractive view lies to the north, it would make little sense that all living areas should face south. And on hot summer days, an east- or west-facing patio can serve as a desirable lounging area. It is important, therefore, to develop a clear understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of each cardinal direction in preparation for the planning stage, as well as to formulate one’s personal preferences and allocate these to the spatial program. South is generally viewed as the ideal cardinal direction because south facades receive the most direct sunlight over the course of a day. This generous amount of insolation is limited, however, to the noon hours, because southern faces of a building receive no direct sun in the morning and in the evening. The positive assessment of south orientation is therefore chiefly applicable to rooms that are used during the day. For people who spend most of their time at home in the mornings and in the evenings, usually because of work, the morning and evening sun may be more important than the bright midday sun. South-facing rooms are ideal for family living rooms and children’s rooms. Shading and glare protection are very important in this context because the strong midday sun can easily lead to overheating in summer and result in unwanted glare in winter. Since the midday sun is fairly high in the sky in Central Europe (approx. 62° at the latitude of Dortmund)12, generous roof overhangs provide good shading. Glare protection in winter can be achieved with internal curtains. North-facing facades also receive direct sunlight, albeit only in the height of summer during the weeks preceding and following the summer solstice, as well as in the early morning and late evening hours. For most of the year, little sunlight will penetrate into the house from the north. Shading is therefore not a requirement and glare protection is rarely required. These factors are frequently taken into consideration by galleries and museums, where works of art should only be exposed to indirect light. Some rooms in private homes, such as library rooms, should also be protected from exposure to direct sunlight. Northern exposure may also be favourable for work areas and kitchens, unless direct sunlight is expressly desired. Soon after sunrise in the east and at the end of the day, prior to sunset in the west, the sun’s position is fairly low in the sky. Its rays reach the earth on a shallow angle and can therefore penetrate deeply into interior spaces through the windows. Morning sunlight does not have the same strength as the midday sun, and shading on east-facing windows is required less as a preventative measure against overheating in summer than to avoid unwanted brightness (e.g. in bedrooms and children’s rooms). The strength of the evening sun, on the other hand, is often underrated. In the past, it was understood that bedrooms should face east so that people would be awoken and energized by the morning sun, while living rooms should face west because this is where people

2.5

2.5

House in Kolig on Lake Ossiach, Kärnten, 1977; Manfred Kovatsch

17

tend to spend their afternoon and evening hours. In principle, the same is true today – although breaking with this tradition may be both sensible and attractive in the interest of certain usage patterns. And if the individual areas are not predetermined for specific uses through size, layout or installations, these allocations can be subsequently changed. The view, provided there is one, should also play an important role in the planning of every single-family house. The house in Moledo (see p. 178ff.) is an example of a design that is wholly subordinate to the quality of the site, bringing a unique view into the home through a generously glazed front. Another, equally attractive option is to frame the view deliberate by means of window placement, focussing on specific sightlines. Topography Many clients prefer a level lot, perhaps because it is easier to imagine a house on such a lot. Hillside lots are considered less useable and technically challenging. Unless your aim is to choose a home from a catalogue, this is an unfortunate prejudice: solutions for the technical challenges are usually fairly easy to find and the design challenge, which such a site poses, often produces especially attractive results. A hillside location offers not only a view past neighbouring development, it can also be rendered experiential inside the house. One example – albeit without unpleasant nearby development – is the single-family house in Moledo, Portugal, where the view across the valley onto the Atlantic Ocean can be experienced in all rooms thanks to a fully glazed facade. Building sites of this nature also offer opportunities to create interior landscapes of great variety. Another advantage of houses built on a slope is that they allow access to the property – and thus the use of private outdoor spaces – on several levels. One impressive example is the house in Vienna Hernals (see p. 112ff.), where the living areas open onto patios both on the south side overlooking the valley and on the north side facing the hillside – on two levels of the home, which are otherwise completely separated from one another. Location on a hillside can thus facilitate the creation of independent entrances, be it for a separate apartment within the house or for individual residents (e.g., adult children) with somewhat independent living areas. The house can easily be divided into several units at a later date.

2.6

18

Construction The conditions of the site and the intended aesthetics for the interior impact another important decision that has to be made early on in the planning process: the choice of the type and material for the load-bearing structure. We differentiate, generally speaking, between massive structures, for example masonry or reinforced concrete construction, and skeleton structure built from wood or steel, as well as a variety of combinations of these two types. Among all common materials employed for load-bearing structures, wood is the only renewable resource, which can be harvested in a CO2-neutral manner and which can be processed into a building material at a fairly modest rate of energy consumption. Moreover, most regions in Central Europe have an ample supply of timber. Wood is used as a building material not only for load-bearing structures but for many different areas of the building sector.13 From an ecological perspective, another advantage of building with wood is that the components can be prefabricated in the workshop while the raw construction is being erected,

greatly reducing the construction time on site (see fig. 2.6). Load-bearing structures built from wood are erected according to two principles: skeleton construction and frame construction. Wood is especially suited for all ‘rod-shaped’ elements (beams, boards) and as a skeleton post and beam load-bearing structure. Skeleton construction is a traditional method of wood construction in Central Europe, documented in many nearly unchanged half-timbered towns and villages from the Middle Ages. As a result of the fairly slender, rod-shaped load-bearing elements used in skeleton construction, there are minimal restriction on the plan, section and facade through load-bearing elements is minimal. This, in turn, allows for tremendous flexibility in room divisions, exemplified in the weekend house near Tokyo (see p. 92ff.). It also affords great leeway in the design of the building skin, as shown in the weekend house in Allensbach and the semidetached house in Munich (see p. 152ff.). By comparison to frame construction, however, classic skeleton structures require both precision in terms of planning the partially visible load-bearing structure and a longer construction time. In frame construction, walls, ceilings and roofs are prefabricated as full panels in the workshop, frequently complete with finished surfaces, windows and installation components. These panels are then delivered to the building site, where they are simply installed and joined. If the planning and production of these elements is executed with the necessary precision, these tasks are usually achieved with little effort and few difficulties. Since they consist of plane components that are individually braced, frame constructions in wood rarely offer the same flexibility with regard to floor plan design as skeleton constructions. However, the garden house in Meckenbeuren and the house in Toronto (see p. 78ff.) demonstrate, that tremendous leeway is possible even with this construction system. Many groundbreaking houses of the twentieth century are steel constructions – for example, the Pacific Palisades house by Charles and Ray Eames near Los Angeles. Today, this method has fallen out of fashion for smaller residential buildings, related to rising steel prices in recent years and to the degree of planning required for steel construction. Since welding and rustproofing steel on site is both difficult and expensive, steel as a load-bearing material for single-family houses is best suited for bolted skeleton constructions.14 Given the very low tolerances in steel construction, these must be planned and manufactured with great precision. They also place high demands in terms the precision in execution (foundations, etc.). Otherwise, steel skeleton construction offers the same advantages as wood skeleton construction, above all flexibility in the design of the floor plan and the building skin, which is enhanced by the high loadbearing capacity of steel, requiring only a few and fairly slender posts and girders. The houses shown on pages 52ff., 92ff., 104ff., 112ff. and 120ff. are skeleton load-bearing structures, in which steel and wood have been combined in a variety of ways. Massive construction, generally associated with masonry, adheres to a completely different construction principle. In it massive planes, usually structurally connected across corners, carry the weight of the ceilings and roofs above. Openings for doors, windows, wiring etc., are integrated into the planes and bridged by lintels that distribute the loads acting upon these openings. The buildings are usually constructed on site brick by brick (or stone by stone) and require fairly

long construction times. In recent years, larger and larger building bricks have been introduced to the market for this reason: although mechanical aids are required for placing them because of the greater individual weight of each unit, their use can shorten the overall construction time. In principle, masonry walls can also be prefabricated, although this approach is of limited use, again because of the weight of the components. From a construction perspective, masonry houses are built of panels and their internal layout and external appearance is therefore defined from the very outset. The examples featured in this book (see p. 152ff., 160ff., 172ff.) from Munich, Erfurt and Berlin demonstrate that there is ample leeway even within this application.15 As a building material, concrete can be freely shaped due to the process by which it is manufactured. Concrete loadbearing structures are always poured or cast (be it on site or as prefabricated components). As in wood construction, concrete can be used for skeleton and for frame construction.16 Combinations, which could be described as spatial frameworks composed of panel and rod elements, are frequently used for residential construction. In other words, almost anything is possible with concrete: from monolithic cast houses like Tadao Ando’s house in Osaka (see p. 128ff.) to Toyo Ito’s house in Tokyo (see p. 134ff.), the structure of which resembles a house of cards, to the perforated facades of the house near Lugano (see p. 140ff.), which could also have been constructed of masonry in a similar form. The use of prefabricated concrete components can not only reduce construction time on site, pre-cast concrete is also a viable alternative because of the greater control over surface quality when components are prefabricated. In addition to precision in planning and manufacture of the prefabricated components, the placement and design of the joints must be taken into consideration in the design, as shown in the house near New York (see p. 72ff.). One disadvantage is that subsequent modifications are laborious in all concrete structures. In contrast to Japan, it is virtually impossible in Central Europe – despite renewed efforts of the concrete sector, especially in Switzerland – to realize houses with monolithic external walls in reinforced concrete that are able to meet the prescribed insulation requirements. Concrete external walls always have to be covered in a special layer of insulating materials, which must, in turn, be enveloped in weatherproof facings (plaster, facade panels, roof tiles, or similar). The insulating layer should lie outside of the loadbearing layer, so that the load-bearing massive wall can be utilized as building component storage for heating and cooling. This type of multi-layered structure has to be carefully calibrated to prevent subsequent damage. If the building skin is to realized with exposed concrete, the only option is to create a core insulation that is largely free of thermal bridges – a very elaborate approach. Monolith walls of lightweight concrete are one exception, although they are still rare in practice.17 Building Systems Minimizing heat losses through the building skin through effective insulation is urgently required in today’s world, not only because of building codes but because of the limited supply and increasing cost of fossil fuels. Heat losses 2.6

Modular construction in residential building, workshop assembly and installation of housing modules on site

19

2.7

influence the sizing of the heating system and the heat distribution within the house. Homes with conventional heating systems generally employ radiators and convectors. Floor heating enhances comfort, but it is slow to respond, that is, it reacts with some delay once the thermostat has been adjusted, and is also expensive to manufacture. As heating requirements diminish, forced air heating systems are once again gaining in popularity although they require an elaborate system of ducts to distribute the air; maintaining clean ductwork over time is also somewhat problematic. All heating elements, especially conventional units, must be incorporated into the planning early on to ensure that the placement of these elements does not limit the use of a room or options for furniture arrangements. The same applies to wiring for electricity and media such as telecommunication, radio, television, etc. The requirements with regard to density and quality of electrical and media installations in homes have risen steadily over the past decades, impacting the performance demands and the number and position of sockets and connections. Once again, it is helpful to imagine scenarios for the future use(s) and furnishing of the rooms during the planning stage. Communications media are playing an increasingly important role. A phone connection that provides access to the Internet has become a standard feature in kitchens and children’s rooms today. Wireless network connections will soon reduce the requirements for media installations in homes. It is too early to judge the impact of this development or of the fusion of telephone, television and Internet into a central medium, which has been announced for some time. Ongoing dialog with experts in the field is worthwhile during the planning stage. While the cross sections for power and media cables are negligible in small residential buildings, the space required for heating, ventilation and water pipes is often underestimated. Although water pipes are fairly thin, the toilet stack has a diameter of 10 cm and can only be installed on a gradient in horizontal sections. The distribution of the pipes is more efficient if fewer separate pipes have to be installed throughout the house or horizontally. Sanitary installations should therefore be bundled and aligned vertically in multi-storey houses. Within each bathroom, the individual sanitary fixtures should be concentrated on one or at most two walls. Finally, it is recommended to provide ample space for bathrooms: given the increasing value placed on body care and wellness in everyday life, bathrooms may well be assigned additional uses. In terms of use, kitchens are dependent on personal preferences and habits like few other rooms in a house. It is difficult, therefore, to formulate general recommendations for planning a kitchen. In addition to a few basic requirements, such as the bundling of sanitary installations and the provision for sufficient worktop space (rule of thumb: 1.2 to 1.5 m per household member), the layout and design should be created in a dialog between client and architect. A separate pantry and a utility space for laundry, etc., which is often located in basements, are useful functional complements to a kitchen. In North America, a separate element in the spatial program has evolved in response to these needs: the so-called “mud room,” a combination of utility room, storage space, informal entrance and playroom. Sound- and Sun Protection Protection from traffic noise can be largely achieved in the context of designing the floor plan, for example, by orienting

20

lounging areas away from the street and neighbouring development. If this is not sufficient, building strategies such as soundproof windows combined with mechanical ventilation may be necessary. Sun protection and privacy are more complex themes: here, aspects such as the welcome winter sun and unwanted discomfort through overheating in summer or lack of privacy from neighbours must be weighed against each other and regulated by means of moveable elements (see fig. 2.7). Curtains on the inside can provide privacy and protect against glare from the low winter sun, protection against overheating in summer requires external elements placed in front of the window. This book includes examples of all manner of systems, from blinds to shutters and textile awnings to Venetian blinds (see pp. 112ff., 120ff., 160ff.). Choosing a system is closely linked to the requirements for operating comfort (from the inside or the outside, electronic or manual, etc.), and has considerable impact on the external appearance of the house over the course of a day and with changing seasons. Although legal requirements for structural sound protection within residential units are modest, one should not underestimate the importance of this topic. Experience has shown that common areas and individual areas should be constructed as separate soundproof units to diminish acoustic interference between these areas. This enhances not only the quality of life of each individual, it also facilitates a division of the home into several units at a later date. Sound protection can be provided through heavy building components in massive construction, because the mass itself acts as a sound barrier. In dry construction with wood or metal skeletons, the use of multiple layers can achieve fairly high sound protection values. Redlining such measures would not be advisable in consideration of resale value.

2.8

Adaptability Statistically, residential homes have a life cycle of several generations – it is therefore obvious that they need to go beyond merely meeting the demands of their first inhabitants. Even within a single usage cycle, the needs of the inhabitants will change as a result of family composition alone, such as children leaving home, grandparents moving in, and the ageing of the principal residents themselves. In addition, the planning concept must be sustainable and structurally adaptable to the demands of future users, whose identity and household composition is naturally not known. From this, one would assume that high-performance, flexible and neutral – that is, more or less anonymous – typologies are needed now more than ever before. 18 On the other hand, for many the allure of the single-family home is its adaptability to individual needs and desires, a manifestation, so to speak, of one’s personal dream of the home environment. The technical and design requirements increase when a housing unit of a given size is to provide instant flexibility through moveable elements. House Schröder in Utrecht by Gerrit Rietveld is a stunning example in the history of single-family houses: the upper floor can be transformed into four separate bedrooms simply

2.7 2.8

Moveable shading, house in Allensbach, 1998; Schaudt Architekten Plans, house in Allensbach, 1998; Schaudt Architekten

21

2.9

by shifting a few moveable walls (floor plans see p. 33). For some years now, the topic of flexible and adaptable rooms has re-entered the dialog among architects. There are several publications, projects and a few realized projects. In the house near Tokyo (see fig. 2.9), the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban demonstrates how wall-height furniture on wheels can functions as mobile dividers in an otherwise neutral room, illustrating that adaptable rooms can have stunning aesthetic and functional qualities. However, all concepts for short-term mobility have one fundamental problem in common: internal sound protection. Furniture as room dividers and rotating wall elements require some leeway above and below and offer no more sound protection than an ordinary curtain. Even mobile walls that are moved along fixed tracks offer considerably less sound protection than conventional walls. If you have ever asked teenagers to lower the volume when they are playing music, you will understand the consequences for a harmonious family life. Another option is to construct houses in a very economic fashion and to leave the interior finishing open to the wishes of the inhabitants. Buildings with load-bearing skeleton structures are ideal for this approach, because the only visible elements on the inside are the supporting posts. Between these posts, the interior space can be freely divided with the help of furniture or lightweight dividing walls, allowing for a variety of floor plans from an open-plan loft to a conventional house with individual rooms. Although usage neutral rooms do not offer flexibility in the narrow sense of the word, they create a practical framework for changes in how household members live together. The quality of the individual rooms, where none are assigned to a specific use through size, layout or installations, is undoubtedly an important reason for the popularity of turnof-the century homes and apartments. As individual rooms for family members, they are small homes within the home and offer sufficient space for a desk, a lounging area or play area in addition to functioning as bedrooms. Experience has shown that these qualities require a minimum size of roughly 14 m2, approximately square in layout, good natural lighting and carefully planned technical installations. A room of this size can accommodate a “classic” master bedroom with a large bed and built-in wardrobe just as easily as a children’s room or a contemporary home office or study. This concept has become current once again for single-family houses, for example, in the house in Allensbach designed by Schaudt Architekten. Barrier-free Housing The barrier-free design of residential buildings is an important aspect when it comes to ensuring longevity of use and value. Given the economic crisis in Germany and the demographic shifts mentioned above, especially the ageing of the population, we will not only want to but be forced to stay in our private homes well into our old age. It is vitally important, therefore, to design homes that are useable by elderly and invalid people or by individuals with disabilities. This presents a unique challenge especially for multi-storey single-family houses, adding new requirements both for the building systems and the space allowed for functional rooms such as bathrooms and kitchens, which, naturally, also translate into higher building costs. In Germany, there are two standard codes for barrier-free building (DIN 18024 for public buildings, DIN 18025 for resi-

22

dential buildings), which will soon be amalgamated into a single standard (DIN 18030). DIN 18025, which is still in effect at this point, contains two parts: part one deals with wheelchair appropriate residential construction; part two addresses barrier-free living in residential buildings in general. Documentation on meeting the requirements of this standard is available in the form of brochures from architects’ associations and the relevant state ministries,19 and provides detailed information on the requirements for wheelchair access to buildings and wheelchair friendly bathrooms and kitchens. Architects are familiar with this theme and can advise their clients down to the last detail. It is unlikely, however, that individual clients will be able to follow these recommendations in all aspects when it comes to multistorey single-family houses: the space and cost requirements would be too high. Certain aspects of barrier-free building should nevertheless be taken into consideration when planning a “normal” single-family house. Avoiding thresholds and low steps makes sense not only because it facilitates wheelchair access and the use of walking aids, but because they can be a hazard to any inhabitant. Floor plan design can usually achieve this criterion, but it does increase the effort required for waterproofing at transition points from inside to outside, entrances, patio doors, etc. The bottom and top of all stairs and the edges of individual steps should be clearly marked for the visually impaired in both directions. This can be achieved by incorporating contrasts in the brightness of different materials; should such measures not fit into the overall aesthetic, they can always be added at a later date. Other safety features must be included in the planning, for example, stairs that are frequently used should have a handrail on at least one side or at least provide the space for a handrail to be retrofitted. If you want to ensure that your home remains liveable in old age or in the event of illness or accidents, you can incorporate the installation of a stair lift or even an elevator into the original plan. This means that a sufficiently large shaft must be integrated into the ground plan, providing access to all levels of the house. This shaft can be used for storage until an elevator is installed. Economy Planning and building in a cost-efficient and sustainable manner has always made sense. Today, as we experience the limits of natural resources and of our own budgets, it has become a necessity. To give full attention to cost-efficient building, one should look not only at the construction costs but also at the operating costs. Two early and important factors in creating a cost efficient house are the placement of the building on the lot and the design of the ground plan. Generally speaking, sensible solutions tend to be costefficient as well – and for this reason some of the aspects mentioned above also apply to this section. The building skin is a cost-intensive component of the house due to the requirements for waterproofing, insulation, sun protection, etc. Simple geometries are usually most efficient both in construction and for operation. Deviations from the norm, such as cantilevers or recesses, bay windows, roof additions or similar features add to the overall cost. In the interior, clear floor plan geometries with straight lines are also more cost efficient. When load-bearing walls are aligned, ceilings are braced always in the same direction and excessive spans are avoided, one can achieve

2.9

Moveable furnishings divide the principal space into zones and also serve as small privacy zones, house near Tokyo, 2000; Shigeru Ban Architects

23

an efficient load-bearing structure independent of the material one have chosen. Building systems should be distributed with a view to economic performance (see p. 21, fig. 2.8). The sustainability of a design is also linked to flexibility of use and adaptability to changing requirements. When the house is put up for sale, the wishes of the client are no longer in the foreground: what matters then is usefulness for potential buyers. Since a house usually represents the largest investment a family undertakes, one should not underestimate this aspect during the planning stage. In this context, the usageneutral rooms discussed in the section on adaptability are an important factor because they offer living options for a variety of family constellations. Materials fall into a similar category: surface standards such as the classic white tiles have established themselves for good reason. Introducing such standards is a useful preparation for the dynamics that are part of an increasingly mobile society. Access and internal circulation are also relevant, because these two aspects determine whether the house can be used by several individuals that do not form a family unit – or whether it can be divided into separate housing units if needed. As mentioned, the choice of the load-bearing structure has a direct influence on the flexibility of the plan and hence on long-term adaptability. The choice of materials for the interior and especially for the building skin will have an impact on the sustained value of the building even in the short and medium term. Materials should therefore be selected not only with a view to building costs, but in consideration of longevity – in consideration of durability and aesthetic longevity.20 In the long term, higher investment at the beginning will result in considerable savings over time. This is not only a question of material stability, but also of material properties as they age. A painted wood facade such as that used on the house in Toronto (see p. 78ff.) has to be repainted at regular intervals, while natural wood cladding – given the appropriate type of wood is chosen – will change in colour over time, but will age and assume a dignified patina, as is most likely the case by now in the houses designed by Henning Larsen and MackayLyons (see pp. 60ff. and 66ff.). Ecology In the age of diminishing resources and cost awareness, ecology is playing an increasingly important role in economic building planning.21 On the one hand, many of the economic measures discussed here are also sensible from an ecological perspective – simple building volumes, for example, where reduced surfaces not only reduce building costs but keep heat losses to a minimum as well. Economic building must also always take operating costs into consideration and energy costs and maintenance play a decisive role here. Many principles of ecological building have become widely known: every building material has its own eco balance, composed, among other things, of energy consumption for gathering the raw material, processing and transportation.22 Renewable materials are better – provided, they have been gathered and processed in a sensible manner and do not have to be transported across long distances. Over the past decades, numerous material studies have shown that certain building materials or their waste products pose health hazards. This has had considerable impact on the building trade: materials that were previously employed only in the small sector of so-called eco houses have been introduced across 24

the board. Countless publications on this topic offer data for comparison and an informed choice of building materials.23 The very early stages of every planning process address decisions that influence the future energy consumption of a building. In addition to building volume, orientation towards the sun, construction of the building skin and its permeability, the relationship between open and closed elements, as well as the ability of building components to store and release heat in a controlled fashion all play a role. Generally speaking, west- and east-, but above all southfacing facades should have a greater ratio of transparent and translucent building components in order to utilize the solar energy that is also available in winter. Facades with northern exposure, by contrast, should be designed primarily with the insulating value of the building materials in mind. At the same time, to protect against overheating in summer, external sun protection must be included for all glazed surfaces. Singleglazed winter gardens, frequently placed as a buffer space in front of living areas, have become outdated as a result of advances in glass and facade technology. Conversely, the storage masses in a building are an important factor for utilizing solar energy because they can absorb, store and then release solar heat. This is an important argument in favour of massive construction with masonry or concrete, although it can also be achieved through constructional measures in wood and steel construction. The potential uses of building components for the active utilization of regenerative forms of energy is a topic that requires a separate essay or an entire book – not least of all because the technology for the systems and devices employed in this area is changing so rapidly. In this context, it is sufficient to refer to some regulations and the relevant literature on the subject.24 Collectors of all types (warm water collectors as well as photovoltaic elements for power generation) should be installed on south sides because this is where they are most efficient. The growing efficiency of collectors may make installation on a southwest or even west side sensible, if this seems appropriate for a given site or building design. Given the stiff requirements of the heat protection act, which can only be met through highly impermeable building skins, mechanical ventilation is becoming more and more attractive for single-family houses, both from and ecological and economical perspective. A system for central ventilation requires careful planning for ventilation ducts and installations; through pre-heating or cooling the incoming air in a central heat exchanger, such measures can greatly improve the indoor climate and minimize heat losses associated with ventilation. Systems of this kind are most efficient in winter and do not preclude window ventilation during non-heating periods. Expert consultation is advisable for the ecological building concept, be it from the architect or from heating and ventilation experts or energy consultants. Clients should understand, however, that even a low- or zero-energy house may not be an ideal model if the resident is forced to travel long distances by car to work or school. Here, each owner should carefully consider the overall energy and resource balance when making a decision on location and housing type. Typology There are many different ways of arranging and distributing rooms and uses in single-family houses. To provide an overview, this book presents different types of plans and sections,

their applications and advantages and disadvantages illustrated with the help of built examples. So-called single-access plans are sometimes also called railway houses because the rooms are strung in a row, one behind the other like the cars of a train. This building type is only suitable for fairly small houses with a simple spatial program, which are either inhabited by small families or only from time to time. The examples for single-access plans presented in this book are therefore not single-family houses as such but additions to existing homes – for example, the cottage in Vejby (see p. 60ff.). One-and-a-half span plans refer to a layout where all living areas in a house face in the same direction, the “living orientation” one might say. Usually, these plans feature corridors on the opposite side that open exclusively onto auxiliary rooms such as bathrooms and kitchens. These plans are ideal for lots that have unique qualities on one side – for example, a stunning view – or extreme challenges on one side – for example, a noisy street. One-sided arrangement of living areas allows for optimal use of qualities or rigorous protection from the disadvantages of a specific site. On the other hand, the direct insolation of the living area restricts the use of these spaces to certain hours of the day. At the same time, this type of plan is only sensible for fairly narrow buildings and results in lengthoriented structures that are ideal for lots with narrow construction zones, although the ratio of building skin to floor area is relatively high and hence expensive. Since the examples chosen for this volume do not include houses on environmentally challenged sites, the unique character of a plan with a single orientation is shown in an instance where the unique quality of one side has been optimized: in the house in Moledo (see p. 178ff.), Eduardo Souto de Moura has placed the living room and all bedrooms on the west side, where they afford a glorious view of the sea. The east side features a long corridor, also with generous glazing but affording only a view of the rocky hillside behind the building. Plans with central access, with a corridor down the middle, are a common typology in residential building. This plan is ideal for east-west orientated buildings with a fairly large building depth, because the low morning and evening sun can penetrate deeply into the interior. One disadvantage of this typology is that the internal corridors tend to be devoid of natural light and therefore quite unattractive. The floor plan can diminish or even overcome this disadvantage, as is demonstrated in the semi-detached house in Munich designed by Werner Bäuerle (see p. 52ff.). One exception, rarely used, is the so-called three-span plan. Here, an additional living zone is added between the two areas along the building sides. This central zone is usually accessed via corridors on both sides and receives light and sun only from the front and back sides of the house. This typology is only suitable for very large houses with great building depth. The only example for this rare type in this book is the elongated house in Münster, designed by Gabriele Andreae and Ulrich Kötter (see p. 104ff.) on a large, park-like lot.

2.10

2.11

2.10 Diagrams of non-directed plans (triple-, single-, one-and-a-half- and double-strung plan) 2.11 House in Regensburg, 1979; Thomas Herzog

25

Finally, there are plans without any specific orientation, overlooking a sheltered site in all directions or entirely introverted. The Japanese architect Ryue Nishizawa has opted for this solution when he designed the weekend house near Tokyo (see p. 92ff.): he arranged the living areas around several courtyards integrated into the square building, thereby creating a house that is entirely oriented on itself. This is also a solution suitable for shielding the house from unattractive surroundings. Atrium and courtyard homes of this kind can also be linked and arranged into dense groups. They should not exceed two storeys: otherwise the courtyards do not receive enough sunlight. In addition to the private back yard, multiple levels are often a major distinction between single-family houses and other forms of habitation. And it is the three-dimensional details that reveal the unique quality of single-family houses. This is expressed, on the one hand, in the design of all access elements and, on the other hand, in the vertical linkages between living areas by means of cathedral ceilings, galleries, atria, mezzanines or similar spatial elements. Conclusion

2.12

Naturally the focal points of each planning process are as different as the composition of individual factors such as site, program and budget, the individual participants with their requirements and preferences and, last but not least, a certain degree of chance. And this is a good thing – after all, the single-family house affords clients opportunities to realize their dream of creating a living environment. This process requires dedication, skill – and time. If at all possible, one should avoid time pressure, whether it is in the selection of participants or working through the program and its implementation. Competent partners in this process are the architect and the expert planners, and they should be chosen with great care. A good planning team will find the right balance between the aforementioned individuality and the overall quality that will ensure long-term use and thus the long-term value of the house. For your future house should be distinguished by both of these characteristics: individual and sustainable.

Endnotes 1 Andritzky, Michael: Balance zwischen Heim und Welt – Wohnweisen und Lebensstile von 1945 bis heute. In: Flagge, Ingeborg (ed.): Geschichte des Wohnens, vol 5. Stuttgart 1999 2 Kähler, Gert: A Small House with a Garden. In this volume: pp. 29ff. 3 Article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany protects the inviolability of the home 4 The term residential biography and several examples on this topic are found in Tränkle, Margret: Neue Wohnhorizonte – Wohnalltag und Haushalt seit 1945 in der Bundesrepublik. In: Flagge, Ingeborg (ed.): Geschichte des Wohnens, vol. 5. Stuttgart 1999 5 For detailed information on this topic see Häussermann, Hartmut: Neue Haushalte – Wohnformen zwischen Individualisierung und Vergemeinschaftung – Neue Lebensstile – Neue Haushaltstypen. In: Neue Wohnformen. Stuttgart; Berlin; Cologne 1999 and Katrin Zapf: Haushaltsstrukturen und Wohnverhältnisse. In Flagge, Ingeborg (ed.): Geschichte des Wohnens, vol. 5. Stuttgart 1999 as well as the website of Federal Statistical Office (www.destatis.de) 6 This theme is treated extensively with regard to the historic evolution of single-family houses and the underlying ideas in Witold Rybczynski: Home - A short history of an idea. New York 1986 7 For a vivid and entertaining overview of the evolution of the living room, see Martin Warnke’s essay »Zur Situation der Couchecke«. In Habermas, Jürgen (ed.): Stichworte zur Geistigen Situation der Zeit, vol. 2. Frankfurt 1979

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17 18

19

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21 22

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The designer Otl Aicher compiled a small cultural history of the kitchen and eating as well as useful tips for kitchen planning: »Die Küche zum Kochen – Das Ende einer Architekturdoktrin«. Munich 1982 On the origins and the development of the private sphere at home and levels of privacy within the home see Häussermann, Hartmut: Für sich sein. In: Schneider, Romana; Nerdinger, Winfried; Wang, Wilfried (ed.): Architektur im 20. Jahrhundert – Deutschland. Munich/Frankfurt am Main 2000 Terency Riley offers a detailed explanation for this development and several provocative theses for its continuation in his exhibition catalogue The Un-Private House. New York 1999 Further information on this debate is contained in the chapter „Wohngrundriss und Orientierung“ in the seminal work by Faller, Peter: Der Wohngrundriss. Ludwigsburg; Stuttgart 2002 For sun position diagram see Neufert, Ernst: Bauentwurfslehre. Braunschweig; Wiesbaden 2005. A lucid overview of the topic solar radiation and energy is found in Geraldine Notthoff: Sonne/ Energiegehalt und Strahlung auf die Erde siehe www.architektur.tu-darmstadt.de Natterer, Winter, Herzog, Schweitzer, Volz: Holzbauatlas. Munich 2003 Hugues, Steiger, Weber: DETAIL Praxis – Timber Construction. Munich 2004. Additional information: Informationsdienst Holz(www.informationsdienst-holz.de) Schulitz, Sobek, Habermann: Steel Construction Manual. Munich, Basel 2000. Additional information: Stahlbau-Verband (www.stahlbau-verband.de) Belz, Gösele, Jenisch, Pohl, Reichert: Masonry Construction Manual. Munich, Basel 2001. Additional information: Mauerwerksverband (www.bauwerk-verlag.de) Kind-Barkauskas, Kaushen, Polónyi, Brandt: Beton Atlas. Munich 2001. Additional information: Bundesverband der Deutschen Zementindustrie (www.bdzement.de) See house in Chur by Patrick Gartmann. In Schittich, Christian (ed.): Im Detail – Einfaches Bauen The following article by the author offers a more detailed discussion of this theme: Krisch, Rüdiger: flexibel – variabel – disponibel. In: Der Architekt – Zeitschrift des Bundes Deutscher Architekten BDA, Heft 10/2002. For example: Barrierefreies Bauen 1: Barrierefreie Wohnungen – Leitfaden für Architekten, Fachingenieure und Bauherren zur DIN 18025, Parts 1 and 2, Vergleichende Betrachtung und Erläuterungen. Published by the Obersten Baubehörde im Bayerischen Staatsministerium des Innern, the Bayerischen Staatsministerium für Arbeit und Sozialordnung, Familie, Frauen und Gesundheit and the Bayerischen Architektenkammer. Munich 1992. This government brochure is also availabe on the Internet as a pdf file at www.byak-barrierefrei.de For an in-depth exploration of this theme see Lampugnani, Vittorio Magnago: Die Modernität des Dauerhaften – Essays zu Stadt, Architektur und Design. Berlin 1995 A current overview of this topic has been compiled by Detlef Glücklich: Ökologisches Bauen. Munich 2005 The Wuppertal Insitute has coined the expression „ecological backpack“ for this subject and formulated the relevant criteria on a scientific basis, see www.wupperinst.org and: Von Weizsäcker, Ernst Ulrich; Hunter, Amory B.; Lovins, L. Hunter: Faktor Vier – Doppelter Wohlstand – halbierter Naturverbrauch. Munich 1995 On the ecology of building materials, see: Häfele, Gottfried; Oed, Wolfgang; Sambeth, Burkhard (ed.): Baustoffe und Ökologie – Bewertungskriterien für Architekten. Tübingen; Berlin 1996 Schittich, Christian (ed.): Im Detail - Solares Bauen. Munich/Basel 2003

2.13

2.12 Atrium houses,1931; Architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 2.13 House in Munich, 2002; Architect: Christof Wallner

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A Small House with a Garden Gert Kähler “I’d like to see every worker in a small house of his own with a pretty garden, so that he can rediscover joy in life at the end of his working day.” Paul von Hindenburg

“He [the common man] asked for so little, and he has been offered so much. He has been offered bribes of worlds and systems: he has been offered Eden and Utopia and the New Jerusalem, and he only wanted a house…” G. K. Chesterton1

From the conservative Paul von Hindenburg – who wished to benefit workers, his former soldiers – to the more frivolous Gilbert Keith Chesterton, the creator of “Father Brown”, to Wolfgang Müller and Wolfgang Neuß, the thieves in “Wirtshaus im Spessart” who long for the bourgeois life, (singing: “Oh, it would be nice/to have a little house with a garden”): all express the same desire, be it for themselves or for others. It is a desire that continues to resonate with 80 per cent of the population today. It’s like squaring the (housing) circle: 80 per cent are content with rented accommodation, yet at the same time 80 per cent want to move into a single-family house of their own. It seems obvious that the villa – or at least its modern version, the detached single-family house in the suburbs, mortgaged to the hilt – is still considered the ideal form of housing. But once they live there, many people realize that they may have made a mistake. Living in a flat in the city wasn’t so bad after all. What makes the single-family house so desirable? First, we are all in search of privacy, of isolation, and insulation from our neighbours (as if the dog barking next door were less of a nuisance than the loud music blasting from the flat upstairs). And, secondly, we share a desire to have something we can call “our own”, even if the bank is the majority “owner”. A perfectly understandable desire, somehow still connected to the instinctive search for shelter in the primordial cave. “The country home is spacious enough for its purpose and inexpensive in its upkeep. We step into a simple yet wellappointed vestibule, followed by a colonnade that surrounds a small but pretty courtyard. … A cheerful reception room lies opposite the central section of the colonnade, next to an attractively furnished dining hall. … On all sides, there are double doors and windows as tall as doors, offering a view, in a manner of speaking, of three seas from both sides and from the front. From the rear, one can see the reception room, the colonnade, the courtyard, the far side of the colonnade, the gatehouse, and the forests and distant mountains beyond.” This is how Pliny the Younger described the “ideal villa”. As the plans for this exemplary home have long since disappeared, generations of professional and amateur architects have freely invented designs loosely based on this text. The first sentence provides the basic criteria for a singlefamily house: it must be spacious enough for its purpose and affordable. Pliny’s ideas and requirements were certainly different than ours, but in Rome only the nobility could afford a villa. Today, wealth has become democratized. Both criteria are prerequisites for the building, but they fail to

pose the question of “how” – that is the question of architecture. Why does one client choose to build a severe box-like container and another a Baroque jewel, at the same cost? One need only stroll through one of the better residential neighbourhoods to note the wide variety. The differences lie not in the number of rooms or in the financial costs so much as in the attitude towards architecture. One can safely assume that the design reflects the client’s wishes; otherwise, he would have chosen a different architect. Each home is a portrait of the client and his family: it makes a statement they wish to communicate to society. In the nineteenth century, a villa was ideally located in the countryside, that is, separate from the workplace in the city. This was one of the main characteristics of elegant living: the relinquishment of close ties between work and home for the benefit of an idyll outside the city – a reaction in part to the inhospitable conditions in cities that were polluted, filthy, unhealthy, noisy, and too close for comfort (for the middle class) to the proletariat. The villa was part of an increasingly differentiated society, and the gap in the quality of living widened. (There had always been a considerable gap between the aristocracy and the middle class. However, within the middle class differences were less pronounced than between the upper middle class and the new fourth class, the proletariat, a force in society by virtue of numbers alone, representing nearly 50 per cent of the total population.) Yet the differentiation went even further: within the city as an urban function and within the home as a function of living (in the villa as in the bourgeois flat, each room was allocated to a specific use). Within the same class, differences existed in the sense of self-presentation. Two types of detached single-family houses evolved during the second half of the nineteenth century, the villa and the country house, each corresponding to a different lifestyle. The villa was a prestige building, a manor house. The Villa Hügel, for example, built for the Krupps family, industrial barons in Essen, could hardly be called “small” with 229 rooms and a total living area of 8,100 m2 surrounded by a private park. The middle class, the entrepreneur who had “made it” in this century of inventions and bold enterprise, was the new aristocrat. Self-confident, at times arrogant, he sought to create an outward manifestation of his position in society.

3.1

House in Yirrkala, Australia, 1994; Glenn Murcutt

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By constructing the villa at the centre of a large property, the bourgeois homeowner retreated into a new-found solitude in an ideal landscape outside of the city, one might even say in blatant rejection of the city. Dirt, noise and the proletariat were to be kept at bay from the family. The wife found herself condemned to a fate of “green widowhood”, running the household and raising the children with a small army of paid help. Stylistically, these houses borrowed from the historic canon of “high architecture”. Symmetrical facades, portico, column, gable, and oriel usually pointed to the Renaissance and Baroque models they tried to emulate, although these similarities are less obvious in the floor plans. Various highly differentiated functions had to be accommodated, and this was not as easy as in Palladio’s Villa Rotonda, which was merely a “little weekend house”. Things were much easier for Hermann Muthesius and his country house outside of Berlin, not because the functions were any less differentiated, but because the deliberately asymmetrical plan of the country house wasn’t required to conform to a predetermined order. When volumetric symmetry was reintroduced, as in the Freudenberg House in Berlin, it was given a looser treatment, at least in the details. The country house, naturally, was outside the city and demonstratively anti-urban in character. In contrast to the villa, however, the client here was less concerned with prestige and presentation than with what could almost be called a reformist attitude. References to the simple forms of the Middle Ages – half-timbering and craftsmanship instead of column and gable – were expressed, on the one hand, by a turning away from formal presentation, and, on the other hand, a withdrawal to a new inwardness, a yearning for the simple life – since life wasn’t simple at all in the new metropolis. The interest shifted from the industrial mass product to individual craft in architecture, and Muthesius or Riemerschmid delivered just that. The title of a book by Paul Mebes, Circa 1800, became the programmatic slogan of the day. But architects such as van de Velde and Olbrich, or movements such as Art Nouveau and the Secession, also strove towards creating the definitive individual product, customized for a single person or a specific family. Against this background, Joseph Maria Olbrich’s model house at the Hesse Fair in 1908 is all the more remarkable. This trade fair, at which the Darmstadt Artists’ Colony had been represented a few years earlier with private homes designed by Olbrich and Behrens, now featured a “colony of small flats” together with the “Opel worker’s house” designed by Olbrich and sponsored by Opel, the car manufacturer. The Opel house had a modest ground plan of 50 m2 and a steeply angled roof. It is a timeless design; only a few decorative details tell us that this isn’t a building from the 1930s or 1950s, but one that predates the First World War. And yet the ground plan is more modern than many contemporary examples. From the foyer with central stairs and access to the kitchen, we step into a living-room that is an early version of a multi-purpose room, a comfortable and flexible combination of relaxation, dining and study areas. The flexibility of this arrangement is all the greater for the even lighting from two sides. The two bedrooms upstairs also face in the same direction. Linked by a large sliding door, they can (almost) be transformed into one large space. In spite of these features, or perhaps because of them, this house is clearly a working-class home (and not simply 30

because of the absence of a bathroom – workers “prefer to wash in the kitchen”). In contrast to his designs for middle-class homes, Olbrich seeks to develop a different typology here. This has less to do with cost, as one might assume (cost, at any rate, being a minor consideration in the case of an exhibition model), but because the best choice for the “working masses” would be mass-produced houses. What we encounter in this example is the individualistic middle-class house versus the working-class house as mass product. This attitude was by no means shared by everyone. It was opposed by a social ideology that sought to individualize workers – not only by means of a certain house typology, but also by giving them the responsibility of house and property in the first place. Surely, the proponents of this ideology argued, property ownership would dissuade workers from patronizing those awful socialist pubs and transform them into good petit-bourgeois citizens, content to cultivate their own bit of green. The great dispute at the annual Werkbund assembly in 1914 – where Muthesius and van de Velde engaged in a verbal battle over typology versus individualism – also reflects fundamental differences (that is, beyond the working-class home). At issue was whether modern mass society would require a corresponding mass product or whether some semblance of craftsmanship could be preserved. A vitally important question that continues to influence home construction to this day, right down to deceptive simulation: for example, mass-produced “hand-moulded” bricks. Individualized houses off the rack, so to speak. Hence the weight given in this study to the origins of the single-family house as a mass product: the questions are the same now as then. This is also true for the interior design of the living space. What Olbrich hinted at in his model for a working-class house, Frank Lloyd Wright realized on a far more impressive scale in the Robie House in Chicago. Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Gerrit Rietveld and Adolf Loos continued in the same vein: that is, to develop an open floor plan, a free and dynamic flow within interior spaces. The Robie House (1908 –10) in Chicago by Frank Lloyd Wright: this private home for a bicycle manufacturer was the high point of the architect’s so-called Prairie Style, which emulated the idiom of the “settler’s homestead” although none were actually located out on the prairies. They were the equivalent to Muthesius’s country house outside of Berlin, an expression of the yearning for the simple life, for family gathered around the open hearth, for shelter beneath a gently sloping roof. Or, in other words, an architectural interpretation of Henry David Thoreau’s philosophy set forth in his diary Walden, or life in the woods. These Prairie houses, and the Robie House in particular, were also an important step towards “making away with the box both in plan and elevation … [a] liberation of space to space”2 – reflecting a more liberal society in floor plans and architecture. The plan combines two elongated rectangles, one for living, the other for auxiliary rooms including two rooms for “servant girls”, as the German publication described it. Between these two rectangles lies the modest foyer with a central chimney and stairs leading to the living area. The entire residential wing is structured around the massive chimney, which divides the rectangle into two unequal halves – a children’s room and billiards room on the ground floor, and an open-

plan living-room and dining-room above. Nature is introduced as the third element, complementing the rectangles, when the full length onto the veranda is opened, a new and yet ancient freedom, only marginally restricted by the street that passes in front of the house. This much is obvious: these buildings express fundamental ideas. The single-family house will not gain architectural importance by discussing its use and practicality. Instead, we must investigate it as an expression of lifestyles, which frequently take on utopian character. And that is precisely what makes working on the private house so exciting. The exhibition of Wright’s work in Berlin in 1910 and the famous Wasmuth publication of his designs brought his work to the attention of Europe. 1910 – the year, as a false rumour has it, when Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Gropius all came together in Peter Behrens’ office. Wright’s influence is unmistakable, especially in the work of Mies van der Rohe. In the 1923 design for a “Country House in Brick”, an idealized model without a specific site in mind, the chimney is the junction from which a series of open-plan rooms radiate outward and into the landscape, each room more open, more “free”, more flowing than the previous. The traditional box-like character of the room has been completely dissolved in this plan. The individual and the family no longer dwell in a “cave” sealed off from nature. They are liberated individuals who face the surrounding landscape and integrate it into their lives. The Villa Tugendhat in Brünn (1928 –30) is a practical and “tamer” realization of the same concept. While the living-room certainly opens to nature – the glass wall onto the garden can be lowered into the ground – a true integration or connection with the garden is “spoiled” by the raised pedestal base. Thus nature is accessible only across a barrier. Mies’s designs for courtyard houses from the following years emphasize the dialectic between separation and openness even more strongly, by opening onto inner courtyards but being hermetically closed off on the perimeter. The tension between interior and exterior space is one of the issues addressed by modern architects in the 1920s. Flexible use is another, and the third is expansion into the third dimension. Gerrit Rietveld’s Schröder House in Utrecht (1924) – deservedly named after the client who had considerable input in some areas of Rietveld’s design – features a core from which the rooms fan out. In this case, the core isn’t the chimney but the stairs. The upstairs level can be used in a variety of ways by means of foldable and sliding walls, creating a division into four separate rooms for Mrs. Schröder and her four children, or a common living area. What at first appears to be simply a practical solution is soon revealed as more: it is a new atmosphere for living. For the design is less about delivering a “functional” solution, a private retreat for each family member at night, and a common space for the entire family by day (or vice versa!). Instead, the variety and inventiveness of the spatial transformations show that the idea of a room as a cell – with all the connotations this evokes – has been abandoned for the benefit of a new openness in lifestyle, a “temporariness” in the positive sense of being open to the future. 3.2 3.3 3.4

3.2

3.3

3.4

Opel worker‘s house in Darmstadt, 1908; Joseph Maria Olbrich Country house in brick, project, 1923; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Robie House in Chicago, Ill., 1908 –10; Frank Lloyd Wright

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3.5

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At the same time, the dissolution of the floor plan in the Schröder House corresponds to a facade whose traditional character as a barrier between interior and exterior is relinquished in favour of a new balance of horizontal and vertical lines and surfaces enhanced by primary colours. The traditional image of the house has been overthrown, replaced by a new “floating” ensemble that is nonetheless balanced. Le Corbusier’s villas address other aspects of the modern house. First, in their clear reference to the functional role of the house, and secondly in terms of “conquering the air”, the aforementioned expansion into the third dimension whose most extreme, and perhaps too extreme, expression occurred in the work of Adolf Loos. Seen from the exterior, the Villa Stein in Garches near Paris (Le Corbusier, 1927) is a study in symmetry and proportion. The plan even included an intervention into the terrain to ensure that the diagonal of the facade would line up with the rise of the stairs. In many ways, this house is a reflection of the classic themes of villa and country house, although the reference point reaches further back (to the Renaissance, as Colin Rowe has remarked) than the beginning of the century, the point of departure for our study. To begin with, however, let’s take a closer look at the floor plan, which includes some unusual features that are not historic references but reflections of the dominant theme of the day, that is, function. In the 1920s the sleepers and dining cars on trains or the cabins on steamships were templates of a kind for the functional layout of a “living space reduced to the existential minimum”. Still, it is astonishing that a bourgeois home such as the Villa Stein, where minimizing space surely wasn’t an issue, was an architectural treatment of this principle. As we look at the floor plans for each level, we cannot help but notice how much the design is influenced by function. The ground floor appears at first glance to follow simple right angles, an impression that soon fades as we step through the entrance. The crush generated by the arrival of a guest and the butler or lady of the house coming to greet him called for the space to be expanded. This was accomplished by curving the wall of the anteroom outwards (the adjacent guest washroom is accordingly claustrophobic). We walk up the stairs towards the piano nobile where the rear wall of the stairwell is demonstratively folded outward, a gesture of invitation into the living area, a kind of “open sesame”. One floor higher, we realize that the corridor leading to the various bedrooms also had to be widened to avoid collisions between people coming and going through five bedroom doors and another entrance. Finally, on the top floor, one wall curves smoothly around a bathtub – “form follows function” – and dominates the plan of the loggia just outside of this room. These idiosyncrasies in the apparent logic of the floor plan – we have mentioned only some, as a detailed study of the floor plan reveals – and the resulting reversal of “principal” and “secondary” rooms is less an indication of the functionality of Le Corbusier’s design than of presentation. The architectural question is not how to best furnish a space in the most functional, practical manner, but how to formulate it architecturally. This is by no means a negative criterion. On the contrary, it is the central question for architecture and for art in general. Our senses are moved not by that which shows what is, but that which shows what can be. (If this weren’t true, then

the concrete panel constructions in the former GDR would be great architecture because they show only what is!) Most impressively in the Villa Stein, and in some of his other private houses of the 1920s, Le Corbusier demonstrates that function is indeed a contemporary topic for architecture in the era of mass production, the Machine Age. No more, no less. “Rain pours into the foyer, rain pours onto the ramp, and the garage wall is completely damp. Moreover, rain pours into my bathroom, which floods at every rain shower,”3 wrote the arthritic client of the Villa Savoye in Poissy in 1937 to his architect (Le Corbusier 1929 –31). With admirable patience he complained of serious problems in the building practically from the day the construction was completed, and lived in what is perhaps the most famous villa of the twentieth century for no more than a few months. Should it be demolished or put on exhibit as a fiasco in terms of construction (like Erich Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower) and in terms of Modernism. Should the villa be preserved for future generations as an example of what not to do? The answer is simple for critics and historians – they don’t have to live in the villa. What good is the most famous house by the most famous architect – and this is not only true for residential buildings – if it isn’t useable? Preserving the Villa Savoye as a museum was undoubtedly a solution worthy of King Solomon, but hardly one that could be applied to other cases. A more universal answer to the question is yet to be found. Why did the villa become so famous? The Villa Savoye has been analyzed by every avid historian of architecture, with the result that there are numerous insights into its mode, effect, and historical references. It seems to me that the heart of the matter is that this villa is one of the few buildings of the century to offer an architectural embodiment of the spirit of this particular period. At the height of its heroic era, modern architecture had to re-examine its values as a result of the worldwide economic crisis of 1929. The Villa Savoye is an impressive high point in the movement and also marks the end of an era. Le Corbusier would never build another “white villa”. As an architectural expression of the Zeitgeist, the villa anticipated a new type of person. In this sense, it was utopian or, as A. M. Vogt remarked, an “architecture of hope”. (With his arthritis, Monsieur Savoye, unfortunately, was not an ideal candidate to inhabit it.) The new person belonged to the Second Machine Age (Le Corbusier) breaking through the chains of the traditional room as a cell by means of the ramp rising across all floors. The Machine Age person was to experience nature as a panel painting, at a remove (the views from the roof terrace are prescribed by the slits in the parapet walls; the ground floor is given over entirely to the car and the servants.) The entire building, conceived as a statement and a counterpart to Palladio’s Villa Rotonda,

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3.5

Ground floor plan, Villa Tugendhat, Brünn, 1928–30; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 3.6 Villa Tugendhat, Brünn, 1928-30; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 3.7 Schröder House, Utrecht, 1924; Gerrit Rietveld 3.8 Floor plan, second floor, open, Schröder House, Utrecht, 1924; Gerrit Rietveld 3.9 Floor plan, second floor, closed, Schröder House, Utrecht, 1924; Gerrit Rietveld 3.10 Interior, second floor, open, Schröder Hosue, Utrecht, 1924; Gerrit Rietveld

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hovers like a spaceship landing (Hans Sedlmayr) or sets out like a steamship towards a better future. Both images evoke objects that have no ties to the earth, are in motion and not of this world. While Adolf Loos’s “three-dimensional plan” was the most rigorous attempt to “conquer the third dimension” despite its conventional proportions for individual rooms, Le Corbusier also realized this concept in several projects. Some examples are the combinations of low rooms and a two-storey livingroom with gallery in many of his residential designs right through to the Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles (1949 –52) or the experiential solution of the ramp in the Villa Savoye. “When each room is given only the height imposed by its function, one can build more economically,”4 said Loos in his famous 1911 lecture to an audience of 2,000 in Vienna, in which he defended his design for the House on Michaelerplatz. His argument for different room heights according to function was clearly based on practical considerations. Later, he would make loftier claims for the significance of his invention (as he believed it to be). Thus, in an essay from 1927: “I would have had something to exhibit [in the Weissenhof Development in Stuttgart, 1927; note G. K.], namely, the solution for dividing the living-room according to the spatial dimension and not by surface area, as has been the practice until now from floor to floor. With this invention I would have saved mankind much labour and time in the development of buildings.”5 Obviously, Loos was as self-confident as ever, assisted, no doubt, by the fact that he was able to realize his ideas in some buildings. The Müller House in Prague (1928 –30) is a good example. Situated on a sloping site above Prague, the house is characterized by the elegant attention to materials. The highly complex interior layout with differing room heights linked by differentiated stairs to the floor above creates several circulation routes through the house. This is integrated into the symmetrical facade for the exterior view – a highly complex and sophisticated approach. The problem is that it is too complicated. Looking at the sections, we notice that the floors aren’t all on one level. But neither are they as different as one might have expected at first. Indeed, a more detailed analysis reveals several hollow pockets in the floor zones, which indicate that some compensation was required to accommodate the spatial plan. That’s not what really matters, however. What does matter is the spatial impact on the viewer and the resident as communicated through movement, in a way similar to Le Corbusier’s designs or Mies van der Rohe’s house but achieved by different architectural means. An architecture of movement is no invention of the twentieth century. From processional paths in antiquity to monumental stairs in the Baroque era, movement has always been essential to the architectural experience. Here, however – and this is the contribution of Modernism – movement relates to the flow between rooms in a singlefamily house and is an expression of a new lifestyle that refuses to be captive to the enclosed space of a room. Another aspect applies to this group of architects and to Modernism in general, even though it was rarely realized beyond the planning stage. This aspect is the linkage between spatial invention and complexity and the social ideal of equality. In his design for a community housing scheme for a cooperative in Vienna (1923), Loos translated ideas for spatial planning into mass housing during the interwar period (1923). Corbusier produced a sketch in which

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the plan of the Villa Savoye was simply multiplied and then applied it to the housing cooperative for workers near Bordeaux. The most plausible solution, however, is found in a housing block designed by Mies van der Rohe for the Weissenhof development (Stuttgart, 1927). Mies demonstrated that once the basic amenities of kitchen and bath were planned, each unit could be executed either conventionally as separate boxes, i.e. rooms, or in an open-plan manner. For the first time, the middle-class house and mass-produced housing for the less affluent (as the euphemism went) differed only in size. Architecturally, they were treated the same. This alone would have been an important step. In addition, however, residents could choose how they wanted to live. In modern architecture, said Berlin’s chief architect Martin Wagner, there is no room for emphasizing the wealth or poverty of the individual.6 Historically, the contrast between houses for the ruling class and houses for the ruled or lower class was never an architectural theme in the sense that it sparked architectural ideas. It was nevertheless an ever-present topic. In every society, the homes of the ruling class have helped to shape the views on architecture, whereas the homes of the lower class shaped nothing whatsoever, not even architecture. This is most evident in the temple as the House of the Gods, on the one hand and anonymous mass housing, on the other. (Proof, if it were needed, that this is not a study of social inequities, for everyone, high and low, was in the ruled class in the first case.) But even a pre-Rotonda Palladian villa or a Baroque palace present the same contrast. Social status alone dictated that a castle be built at a point where all paths in the region would converge in order to legitimize the godlike position of the prince. Or, in the words of Renaissance architect Filarete: “We must now address private buildings. There are three types and scales, according to rank, namely: first, palaces for nobility, second, homes for the plain people and craftsmen, and third, housing for people of low standing and the poor. We merely mention the latter, for they cost little in money or craftsmanship.”7 The contrast dissolved with the onset of modern mass democracy. Architects could not solve the problem that affluence and onership were still linked. But affordable housing suddenly became a topic for architecture and, as we have seen, it was given the same attention as housing for those who earn more – in other words, a Villa Savoye for all. While the Mathildenhöhe project in Darmstadt upheld a class distinction between the individualized middle-class house

3.11 to 3.14 Third floor to ground floor, Villa Stein, Garches, 1927; Le Corbusier 3.15 Villa Stein, Garches, 1927; Le Corbusier 3.16 Villa Savoye, Poissy, 1929 –31; Le Corbusier 3.17 Villa Savoye, sketch; Le Corbusier

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and the typified working-class house, other developments made no such distinctions. The spirit of the German Werkbund, founded in 1907, and of its patrons, clearly informed the houses designed by Heinrich Tessenow, which, although conservative in spatial layout, displayed no distinctive differences between middle and lower class. Instead, they elevated the worker to the middle class. “I’d like to see every worker in a small house of his own with a pretty garden, so that he can rediscover joy in life at the end of his working day.” The idea that a worker might also discover joy in his work was obviously still inconceivable. In an overview of the efforts to overcome class differences in housing before and after the First World War, one has to conclude that success failed to materialize, especially with regard to the clientele that was the main target. The goal of Le Corbusier, Loos or Mies van der Rohe to create architecture as an “essential expression of our civilization”, as the latter put it, was never achieved on a broad scale, at least with regard to their views on the Machine Age person. And in the few cases when it was realized, the inhabitants did not relate to it or downright rejected it. The Henri Frugès housing scheme in Pessac near Bordeaux (1924–26), designed and built by Le Corbusier for workers, was an uncompromising assemblage of boxy steamships striking out in search of a brighter future with the master himself as captain. But as time went by, it was changed beyond recognition. A similar fate befell the Praunheim development in Frankfurt designed by Ernst May and Herbert Boehm (1926 –29). Most of the New Building in 1920s Germany paid no attention at all to the flow between rooms, movement, penetration of levels into the third dimension, etc. Instead, the common housing unit was simply a series of rectangular rooms on either side of a corridor, a model dating back to pre-war reform housing. The only truly innovative feature, which “modern” architects addressed at least in part, was the idea of matching a larger living area with several small cells or cabins for sleeping, instead of increasing the freedom of individual choice by providing several rooms of equal dimensions, as Bruno Taut demanded. Open floor plans? An architecture of movement? No, thank you! It is important to stress this point because it continues to reflect a new class society in which Modernism stands for lifestyle. But this class can no longer be identified by money (and especially not by a now defunct class loyalty). It is less a question of excluding those who earn less than one of including others who also have wealth. Their homes, today’s urban residences or urban villas, follow the same principles of layout and sequence of rooms according to function that are present in social housing. Class in the architecture of the single-family house is no longer defined by wealth or income level, but by lifestyle! The comparison, although unintentional, is nevertheless attractive: after the Second World War, when Roosevelt’s New Deal introduced America to the idea of social housing, Mies van der Rohe built the Farnsworth House (Plano, Illinois, 1949–51). At the same time 17,500 identical detached single-family houses were erected in a development near New York by an architect and project developer whose name would become synonymous with this type of suburb: Levittown (Levitt & Son, 1947–52).8 These houses were inexpensive, standardized, rational in floor plan and finishing (construction workers moved from

site to site in specialized teams, so that 36 identical houses each with a 70 m2 living area were completed every day) and modifiable. For owners could do more than simply renovate the attic; over the years, each family modified their house to suit themselves. Today, the development no longer presents the uniform face it had upon completion, ironic at the time, when we consider that most of the original residents were soldiers returned from war. The changes are colourful, in typical American fashion. Levittown was a project subsidized by the state in the form of favourable credit rates to enable everyone (that is: every white person) to own a small house with a garden. It allowed people who had never been able to do so before to take the leap towards ownership of house and property. It was extremely successful with the clients, to whom a fully detached single-family home seemed to be the ideal choice for living. By contrast, Mies van der Rohe’s house for a woman friend can only be viewed as a solitary model despite the architect’s efforts to create a universal design. (The image of 17,500 such homes next to one another, with subsequent additions, changes and renovations, is staggering!) This is perhaps the most radical private house in modern architecture: two steel plates stretched between steel supports, and that’s about it. Necessity dictated a dividing wall between interior and exterior, albeit a fully transparent one. Only the surrounding trees provide a real barrier. The architect felt that we should strive to bring nature, houses and people together into a “higher unity” 9 and, almost in an echo of Le Corbusier, he called for a unity between “man, nature and space”.10 Who is brave enough to live (and sleep) alone – the house was designed for a single occupant – in a house that stands in the middle of nature separated from the outside only by an invisible barrier, but not really protected from it? When Philip Johnson built his version of the glass house, he placed a fully enclosed cube for sleeping next to it. It is less a question of protection than of having the self-confidence to face nature naked, so to speak, of abandoning oneself to that higher unity between nature and man. This concept is so daring, so radical, that it is hardly surprising it has rarely been realized in housing construction on a broader scale and when it was done, occupants would quickly alter it to meet their own bourgeois requirements. Such radical freedom challenges us even today. It is the challenge of modernity; for those equally “modern” individuals, a few architects have designed correspondingly modern houses as precursors of things to come. Whether the occupants ever truly experienced these houses as harmonious with their own sense of living is another question. This doesn’t mean that modernity has failed. On the contrary: now that we can look back at these houses, we understand just how radical, encompassing and demanding modernity is. The counterpoint to the absolutism of a Mies van der Rohe, but still within the framework of modern architecture, is the “romantic” dialogue with nature. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater (Bear Run, Pennsylvania, 1936) and Alvar Aalto’s

3.18 Interior, Müller House, Prague, 1928–30; Adolf Loos 3.19 Section, Müller House, Prague, 1928–30; Adolf Loos 3.20 Henri Frugés development, Pessac near Bordeaux, 1924–26; Le Corbusier

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Villa Mairea (Noormarkku, Finland, 1937–39) are beautiful examples. What they represent is not abstraction in juxtaposition to nature, but man’s connection with nature through architecture. In Wright’s house, pure rock is exposed in the living-room floor and thus integrated into the interior. This is not about so-called “organic” forms. The issue isn’t “round equals natural” versus “orthogonal equals rational”. Fallingwater, too, has a rectangular plan. And the white layers that rise above the waterfall are clearly legible as deliberately non-natural forms. The difference between this house and the Farnsworth House is perhaps best understood in an analogy to boats: Fallingwater is like a sailboat that harnesses the forces of nature to overcome them; the Farnsworth House, on the other hand, is like a steamship that employs a mechanical force to meet nature head on. And is sometimes vanquished by it. We can distinguish two major themes in the modern architecture of the first half of the twentieth century and its influence on the development of the single-family house. First, an examination of nature versus man-made in an era when humankind increasingly sought to conquer nature through industry and in war. And second, the search to find an architectural expression of the “masses” in a time of mass democracy, abolishing the concept of a (visible) “ruling class” and ensuring that architecture, too, would no longer reflect the tenets of class distinction so uncompromisingly stated by Filarete. Both themes continued to be explored in the second half of the century, although from a less innovative perspective, and a few examples suffice to illustrate this continuation. At first glance Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion House and Christopher Alexander’s ideas in A Pattern Language have little in common: the former is a highly sophisticated round building, which could theoretically be erected on any site, and the latter investigates how the conditions at a specific site can be used to develop a house that responds to primal forms of human habitation and translates them. What they do have in common, however, is the radical approach to thinking and, in each case, the fundamental departure point that breaks with traditional concepts of architecture. Therefore both concepts have remained foreign within the discipline of architecture, their architects outsiders, because their conceptual approaches were unconcerned with form as such. Instead, they developed radical solutions for human conditions of existence. Working within parameters such as cost-efficiency, mass production, ease of construction and demolition, flexible orientation and, above all, ecological sustainability, Fuller succeeded in developing a house that departs from all formal ideas of the twentieth-century house, while at the same time remaining more true to its immanent principles than all other “architects’ houses” in search of a formal translation of these self-same principles. The fact that Fuller ended up creating a reference to such traditional forms as the Mongolian yurt merely proves, that the same conditions will produce the same results when it comes to housing, regardless of progress in technology. The same is true for Christopher Alexander’s work. Books such as A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building11 are virtual bibles of building – right down to the elegant, thin paper (incidentally, known as “bible paper”). The language, too, is biblical in tenor and A Pattern Language in fact states a total of 253 “commandments” (“Give those parts of the house where people sleep, an eastern orientation…”12).

At its core, however, the work gathered in this volume is fundamental, a truly radical analysis of all that remains constant and universal in the human character and human habitation and how to transpose these “truths” into architecture. This, then, is no syllabus of “form” or “design”. Instead, it deals with as basic an idea as “living”. It is important to look at the basics, especially in an analysis of the private home, because the history of building tends to focus on formal aspects. While form is important, the single-family house, in contrast to other types of building, is as much a reflection of lifestyle as it is of style. Both the formal statement of the building and the interior arrangement – inseparable in good architecture – tell us something about the people who chose to live in this particular house. They also reflect the era in which the building was designed, that is, they deliver a universal message. Towards the end of the century, this universal message can be described as a tendency towards simplification, towards basic tenets and truths expressed in many facets. As a stylistic return to “eternally valid forms” and a turning towards traditional ways of building, or as a rediscovery of the meaning of simple rooms, often with questionable divisions into components and a whole range of solutions for transitions between spaces. At the other end of the spectrum there is a tendency towards built banality, especially shocking because it reduces the private house to a mere symbol of its true role in society. Mario Botta’s house in Riva San Vitale in the Ticino (1971–73) is a kind of catalyst for an approach to building whose severe and formal concept is a declaration against the nondescript sprawl that has threatened to engulf everything, a continuing problem not only in the Ticino region. “Workers, the Social Democratic Party of Germany is trying to take away your villas in the Ticino!” is the slogan on a poster by caricaturist Klaus Staeck, a sarcastic comment on the overdevelopment and urbanization of a landscape renowned for traditional crafts and building styles – a development that is in no small part due to the influx of affluent Germans. Botta absorbed the region’s traditional styles and transposed them into a new form. At first glance, his residential house in Riva San Vitale is a “tower”, a familiar shape in the mountain landscape. A metal footbridge, conceived as an independent structure, provides access to the house. One enters on the top floor, descending to the living area on the ground floor. The grey concrete building blocks, made famous by Botta’s use, and their skilled, precise placement demonstrate the desire to overcome the arbitrariness of nouveau riche villas and to seek an authenticity that carries over to the inhabitants. The architecture, with obvious influences from Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, is frankly contemporary despite its new monumentality. Richard Meier’s Douglas House in Harbour Springs, Michigan (1973) is also located on a steep slope, and once again we enter on the top level. Still, this is a different type altogether: footbridge and house form a unit here, a moored “steamer”,

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3.21 Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill., 1949–51; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 3.22 Plan and elevation, Farnsworth House, Plano, Ill., 1949–51; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 3.23 Villa Mairea, Noormarkku, Finland, 1937–39; Alvar Aalto 3.24 Interior, Dymaxion House, 1940–41; Richard Buckminster Fuller 3.25 Dymaxion House, 1940–41; Richard Buckminster Fuller

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accessible via a gangway. Meier picks up Le Corbusier’s formal language of the 1920s – unlike Botta, who was influenced by Corbusier’s later style. On the other hand, the symbolic connotation of the “steamer” is no longer thematically emphasized as “an architecture of hope”. By the 1970s, the “steamer” had become a “cruise ship”. The difference between the Villa Savoye and the weekend house on Lake Michigan is like that between a professional seaman and the German actor Hans Albers. Let’s stay with the analogy for a moment, despite its limitations. The single-family house in Brühl designed by Heinz Bienefeld (and completed in 1997) is like an old ship’s mate in a wooden rowboat. Such boats are gems of craftsmanship: the hull in clinker construction and the rising form towards the bow make them singularly fit even in stormy seas. Over centuries of shipbuilding, every detail has been fine-tuned, reduced to the simplest and most perfect form, like a hammer or a spoon. The same quality exists in Bienefeld’s buildings, for which clients have to wait almost as long as they would for a custom boat. The end result is worth the wait, even though – no, because – it is so simple (as simple, by the way, as the Farnsworth House, although it makes a completely different statement). The plan of the house in Brühl is truly basic: the massive volume accommodates the various rooms in a symmetric arrangement from the ground floor up, with the children’s rooms on the top floor and the parent’s bedroom under the gabled roof. A glass-enclosed vestibule fronts the building, placing the stairway to the upper floors in an intermediate zone between interior and exterior. The staircase connects to the roof and is separated from the massive main volume. In this way the “simple” plan becomes an exploration of closed and open spaces. The actual rooms for living are strictly closed, still “caves”, while the transition and access area to the outside and to the upstairs is interpreted in an open fashion, in keeping with its cursory character. “Functional requirements are revealed, interpreted as ornaments or staged awkwardly as if to avert a disaster. This work has no equal …”13 remarked one critic, and rightly so. Some 1,200 planning sketches are witness to a determination to create the perfect house, one that is truly unusual in today’s fast-paced world. Tadao Ando’s housing designs touch on similar qualities, albeit in a completely different cultural context. Anyone who runs a hand across Ando’s perfect fair-faced concrete will feel that this material is not a time-saving industrial product but work in which perfection and craft are given priority. Ando’s buildings, at first alien to the Western eye, stand out for the impressive variety of internal arrangements in a limited space. They create a barrier to the outside and radiate a strong sense of tranquillity (reminiscent of Kazuo Shinohara’s buildings) – architecture reduced to the essential. In Tokyo or Osaka, the need for this “contemplation” is self-evident. The design of Horstkotte House in Hanover (Hansjörg Göritz, 1993) creates a different kind of “barrier”. Amidst a wasteland of subdivisions, this house is a “city” unto itself. Its “public space” is expressed by the open woodwork of the roof which seems to merely rest on the peripheral walls and has a temporary look. Privacy is provided by the sheltered spaces arranged in a U-shape, which rises two storeys high around a “market square”. A “city within the city” for one family, a mini-

ature image of society, minimal too in the use of material and light and the changing aspects of both through the movement of light. The universal mark of the “New Simplicity”, particularly in single-family house construction, is the conscious exploration of the theme of individual lifestyles. These are buildings for a specific group of affluent clients who want to withdraw from the (cultural) mayhem whose noise and commercialism create a cacophony, no matter how “aesthetic” it might be in its own way. (An escape, incidentally, not unlike that of the bourgeois families who moved into Muthesius’s “country house” circa 1900.) This brand of asceticism presumes that one could afford “anything” but choose not to. The slogan: “As simple as possible, no matter the cost” is fitting, despite its sarcastic tone. Herzog & de Meuron’s Rudin House in Leymen, France (1998), is a kind of apotheosis of simplicity – a gingerbread house. The square, fair-faced concrete house with a saddle roof stands on a concrete slab, creating a horizontal platform on the sloping site. The windows seem cut into the facade with the precision of a surgical knife. The building represents the most radical return to an archetype. A return to simplicity is the key. Regardless of whether the planning focuses on how to construct a wooden building with modern technology or on the latest in energy-efficiency (inasmuch as a single-family house can ever be energy-efficient) or on simple floor plans. All are unabashedly contemporary despite a return to the archaic, to the traditional. And many are in the traditional shape of the rectangle with a saddle roof. That this is but one of several trends in single-family house design is immediately obvious when one walks through prefab subdivisions or developments where houses are built more or less without the benefit of an architect. The DIY accessories may smack of poor taste (although “poor taste” is less a question of objective criteria than of majority opinion). Still, they express a yearning one should take seriously, that is, a desire for the familiar which will gradually establish itself in Germany as elsewhere – a “New Traditionalism” or “Pliny Revival”. One needn’t find these new classicist houses beautiful. But their clients are driven by the same desire for shelter and comfort as those who subscribe to the “New Simplicity”: the desire for simplicity, for clarity, for familiarity, which they hope to find in that which has “always” been there. It is the desire for an ideal world. And what’s wrong with that?

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3.28 8 9

10 11 12 13

Information about Levittown from R. Krisch: “... in die Jahre gekommen: Levittown on Long Island”, db 10/98, pp. 124 Mies van der Rohe in conversation with Chr. Norberg-Schulz (1958); quoted from W. Tegethoff and Mies van der Rohe, Die Villen und Landhausprojekte (Essen, 1981), p. 130 Le Corbusier, Grundfragen des Städtebaus (Stuttgart, 1945), p. 11 Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language (New York, 1977) and A Timeless Way of Building (New York, 1979) Ibid., p. 714 W. Bachmann, “Ein Familienhaus in Brühl: Heinz Bienefeld” in Baumeister 11/97, p. 23

Notes 1 G. K. Chesterton, “The Homelessness of Jones” in What’s Wrong with the World (London, 1910), p. 75 2 Frank Lloyd Wright, as quoted in Frank Lloyd Wright: In the Realm of Ideas, edited by Bruce Brooks Pfieffer and Gerald Nordland (Chicago, 1988), p. 19 3 T. J. Benton, Le Corbusiers Paris der Villen (Stuttgart, 1984), p. 203 4 D. Worbs, “Der Raumplan im Wohnungsbau von Adolf Loos”, in Adolf Loos 1870-1933: Raumplan-Wohnungsbau, ed. Akademie der Künste (Berlin, 1984), p. 65 5 Ibid., p. 174 6 M. Wagner, “Zivilisation, Kultur, Kunst”, Wohnungswirtschaft 20–21/26, p. 168 7 Antonio Averlino Filarete, as quoted in G. Germann, Einführung in die Geschichte der Architekturtheorie (Darmstadt, 1980), p. 76

3.26 Koshino House, Ashiya, Japan, 1979-81; Tadao Ando 3.27 Rudin House, Leymen, France, 1998; Herzog & de Meuron 3.28 House in Riva San Vitale, Ticino, 1971-73; Mario Botta

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Table of projects according to materials used

Timber

Steel

page 44 House on Lake Starnberg timber / steel / glass

page 104 House in Münster steel / timber / glass

page 52 Two Semi-Detached Houses in Munich timber / glass

page 112 House in Hernals, Vienna steel / timber / glass

page 60 Summer House with Studio in Vejby timber / glass

page 120 House in Almelo steel / timber / glass

page 66 House in Nova Scotia timber / glass page 72 House near New York timber / precast concrete elements / glass page 78 House in Toronto timber page 84 House in Kawasaki timber / glass page 92 Weekend House near Tokyo timber / corrugated steel / glass page 98 Weekend House in Australia timber / glass 42

Concrete

Brickwork and stone

page 128 House in Osaka exposed concrete / glass

page 146 House in Li Curt rendered brickwork / concrete

page 134 House in Tokyo exposed concrete / glass

page 152 House in Munich rendered brickwork

page 140 House near Lugano concrete / rendered brickwork

page 160 House in Erfurt rendered brickwork page 166 House in Italy facing brickwork / stone page 172 House in Berlin facing brickwork / concrete page 178 House in Moledo: stone walling / concrete / glass

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House on Lake Starnberg Architects: Fink + Jocher, Munich

Site plan scale 1:1000 Structural system for cantilevered section of house

44

Since the beginning of the 19th century, the shores of Lake Starnberg south of Munich have been one of the classical villa areas in Germany. The site of the present house lies on the edge of a natural landscape park that extends to the southern tip of the lake. In the manner of historical models in the region, the roughly 400 m2 villa was erected as a free-standing object in the middle of the site. On the ground floor are two studies as well as a self-contained flat with its own entrance. Access to this and to the main dwelling on the upper level is from a covered passageway through the middle of the building. One aim of the design was to provide a high degree of privacy for the living realm of the family of five, while ensuring fine views of the natural surroundings. Elevated in level, the dwelling on the first floor is removed from prying eyes. At the same time, the almost fully glazed south and east fronts of the living and dining spaces afford a vista over the lakeland area. Clearly visible from the outside are the staircase and kitchen, which form a bold black core internally. The primary timberframe structure also remains legible in the facade. The large, solid larch frame members are braced by three-ply laminated larch wall elements. Externally, the timber facade has been treated with a dark pigmented glaze that provides the required ebony finish. Thanks to the compact form of construction, the walls function as structural membranes. To ensure that the indoor climate would not be like that within a simple wooden hut, cellulose-fibre insulation was used. This possesses a better thermal-storage capacity than synthetic materials and results in greater thermal inertia in the building skin, with a delayed heat-transmission process. The floor between the two dwellings has a much higher sound-insulation level than that required by building standards. On two sides where the upper storey is cantilevered out a great distance, structural deflection had to be minimized to ensure that the large-area glazing units would not be subject to stresses. The five-metre cantilevered section of the upper floor at the eastern end is supported by an upstand beam – constructed as a “saucisse” or balancing arm – which runs along the roof over the dining room and is borne by the core wall. As a result, it was possible to design the south-east corner of the house in a fully glazed form with visual links to the landscape park.

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Sections Floor plans scale 1:400

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Room Bathroom/WC Living area Kitchen Dining area Store Study Swimming pool

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1 70 mm single substrate layer 20 mm protective layer, drainage and filter mat two-layer root-resistant bituminous sheeting 20–80 mm insulation finished to falls bituminous sheeting on 25 mm oriented-strand board 200 mm cellulose-fibre insulation between 120/200 mm roof beams vapour-retarding layer 27 mm elastic bearing strips 2≈ 12.5 mm plasterboard 2 71/250 mm larch structural member 3 21 mm three-ply larch laminated sheeting, varnished 50 mm battens; windproof layer 20 mm fibreboard 200 mm cellulose-fibre insulation between 60/200 mm timber studding 12 mm plywood vapour-retarding layer 12.5 mm plasterboard 4 floor between dwelling units: 22 mm oak block parquet flooring 75 mm reinforced screed around underfloor heating moisture-diffusing sheeting 30 mm impact-sound insulation 8 mm wood fibreboard 50 mm sand/gravel filling moisture-diffusing sheeting 119 mm laminated glued timber floor 27 mm elastic bearing strips 12.5 mm plasterboard 5 68 mm larch casement frame 6 30 mm three-ply laminated larch folding-sliding shutter 7 120/60 mm softwood structural member 8 22 mm oak block parquet flooring 75 mm screed around underfloor heating moisture-diffusing sheeting 30 mm impact-sound insulation vapour-retarding layer 25 mm oriented-strand board 220 mm cellulose-fibre insulation between 120/220 mm floor beams vapour-retarding layer 27 mm elastic bearing strips 12.5 mm plasterboard

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Sectional details scale 1:20

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1 internal wall in living area with high sound insulation: 12.5 mm plasterboard 27 mm sound-insulating elastic strips 12 mm plywood 120 mm cellulose-fibre insulation between 60/120 mm timber studding 2≈ 12.5 mm plasterboard 2 20 mm solid glued oak drawer front, white varnished; press-button opening 3 20 mm solid glued oak top, white varnished 4 galvanized steel full-extension runners with ball-bearings 5 indirect lighting strip 6 15 mm solid oak glued shelving, white varnished 7 floor construction: 22 mm oak strip parquet flooring 75 mm screed around underfloor heating moisture-diffusing sheeting 30 mm impact-sound insulation vapour-retarding layer 25 mm oriented-strand board 220 mm cellulose-fibre insulation between 120/220 mm floor beams vapour-retarding layer 27 mm elastic bearing strips 12.5 mm plasterboard

Two Semi-Detached Houses in Munich Architect: Werner Bäuerle, Constance

Site plan scale 1:2000 Section Roof storey plan Upper floor plan Ground floor plan scale 1:250 1 2 3 4 5

Living-dining room Study Bedroom Void Studio

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The site was a client’s dream: a small park-like area with a dense stock of large old beech trees in an upmarket suburb of Munich. For the architect, however, the planning of this pair of houses posed a special challenge. Tree-protection orders restricted not only the volume of the development, but the area of the site on which it was possible to build. The location and construction of the houses required a sensitive intervention in the surroundings. With a compact, three-storey design in timber construction, it was possible to resolve the spatial problems, since only a minimum area was required for site works. It was relatively simple to transport the columns and continuous beams between the trees. These elements, which form the structural framework of the houses, are laid out to a grid with axes at 2.0-metre centres. Horizontal bracing is provided by three-ply sheets 5 cm thick. The facade construction, set outside the columns, allows individual timber or glass elements to be replaced without difficulty. The development presents a harmonious overall picture, in which the natural tree-lined surroundings complement the construction materials. The strict symmetry of the north facade, clad with vertical larch elements with only a few slit-like window openings, is relieved by the irregular organic forms of the trees. In contrast to the closed street front, the house opens on to the garden on the south side with room-height glazed elements. On this face, the typical design features of skeleton-frame construction are accentuated by the external steel diagonal crossed bracing and the coloured glass infill panels to the facade elements. The projecting sections of the narrow end walls of the building are also fully glazed. A functional differentiation of the glazed elements to these end faces is achieved through a combination of fixed glazing, opening lights and louvred windows for controlled ventilation. The quality of openness between internal and external space is underlined by the layout of the houses. On the ground floor, the continuous living-dining rooms are adjoined by outdoor terraces. Only the first floor is divided up – into three bedrooms of equal size. The ante-room on this level, however, is open to the roof storey and enclosed within broad areas of glazing. From here, a slenderly dimensioned steel staircase leads up to an attic studio, which is glazed on three sides. The roof-storey facade is set back on the garden side to create a terrace and a narrow balcony beneath the monopitch roof. Set amidst the treetops, the open spaces at this level offer the occupants a further taste of the forest in an urban situation.

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Standard structural details

scale 1:20

4 A Junction between column and continuous beam (one side only) B Junction between column and continuous beam (one side only) with steel connector plate for balcony and bracing construction C Intersection between column and continuous beam D Foot of column

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120/120 mm laminated timber column 120/220 mm laminated timber continuous beam 237/214/8 mm slotted steel plate 114/650/8 mm slotted steel plate 114/220/8 mm slotted steel plate welded to 200/200/10 mm steel footplate 6 Ø 12 mm holes

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1 5/30 mm steel-flat gutter bracket 2 4 mm aluminium composite panel 3 roof construction: layer of gravel (16–32 mm grading) plastic roof sealing membrane roofing felt separating layer 19 mm sawn tongued-and-grooved boarding (19 mm sandwich slabs where visible) insulation finished to falls 160 mm thermal insulation between 120/180 mm timber rafters and 60/160 mm timber cross-ribs vapour barrier: alum. composite membrane 19 mm sandwich slab 4 roof construction: 0.8 mm corrugated alum. sheeting (55/177 mm) roof sealing layer 19 mm sawn tongued-and-grooved boarding (19 mm sandwich slabs where visible) 160 mm thermal insulation between 80/160 mm timber beams polythene vapour barrier 19 mm sandwich slab 120/220 mm laminated timber rafters 5 wall construction: 40/40 mm horizontal larch strip cladding 24/48 mm black-painted battens black windproof paper 22 mm wood fibreboard 147 mm thermal insulation polythene vapour barrier 12.5 mm gypsum fibreboard 6 floor construction: 20 mm beech strip flooring (in bathrooms: linoleum on 19 mm sheeting) 60 mm insulation between 60/60 mm wood floating bearers 25–20 mm impact-sound insulation 50 mm laminated board 120/220 mm laminated timber joists 7 120/120 mm laminated timber column 8 waterproof reinforced concrete 9 50/100/8 mm perforated steel angle 10 40/60 mm steel angle handrail 11 40/40 mm horizontal larch strip cladding 12 balustrade post: 2≈ 20/40 mm steel angles 13 50/100 mm steel channel 14 25/50 mm steel channel 15 2≈ 30/50 mm steel angles 16 2≈ 30/45 mm steel angles 17 Ø 26 mm stainless-steel handrail 18 tinted glass 19 metal grating on neoprene bearings 20 Ø 52 mm compression tube 21 Ø 16 mm steel rod bracing 22 40/90 mm wood strips on supporting structure 23 steel Å-beam 100 mm deep

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Detail: abutment between roof and party wall Horizontal sectional details scale 1:20 2, 4, 5, 7 see page 57 24 mineral-wool insulation 25 fireproof sealing layer 26 Ø 80 mm rainwater pipe 27 12.5 mm gypsum fibreboard 28 107.5 mm thermal insulation 29 2≈ 15 mm gypsum fibreboard 30 40 mm mineral-wool thermal insulation

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Summer House with Studio in Vejby Architects: Henning Larsens Tegnestue A/S, Copenhagen

This summer residence is situated in an attractive landscape area on the north coast of Zealand, the largest island of Denmark. The house contains a space for artists, where they can develop new projects removed from the distractions of everyday life. The client, a gallery owner, requested the architects to design a building roughly 100 m2 in area and to incorporate a studio that could be separated from the other spaces if required. Located on a site 55 metres above sea level – a relatively high altitude for Denmark – the house is a simple timber structure with a closed north face and a fully glazed southern aspect. A large part of the western facade is clad with top-hung louvred elements that can be opened by pneumatic extension arms to provide sunshading for the extensive terrace. The house consists of a single space 5.4 metres wide and 16.4 metres long. In the middle is a cubic services core containing a sanitary space, a kitchen recess and a fireplace. The core is daylighted via a roof light. Sliding doors integrated in the walls of this cube can be drawn out to divide the overall space into four distinct zones: an entrance area, a living room, kitchen and studio. The load-bearing structure of this elongated house, consisting of closely spaced timber frames, is braced by steel elements and the solid core. While the soffit and internal faces of the walls are lined with pale birch-veneered plywood, larch was used for the flooring and in all external situations. As it weathers, larch acquires a fine silvery-grey patina that blends with the dense carpet of ferns around the house.

a Floor plan • Sections scale 1:250 1 Entrance 2 Shower / WC 3 Living area 4 Kitchenette 5 Studio 6 Terrace

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Section scale 1:20 1 roof construction: two-layer bituminous felt roofing 30 mm water-resistant boarding 200–300 mm mineral-wool thermal insulation between rafters vapour barrier 19 mm birch plywood 2 wall construction: 19/56 mm larch tongued-and-grooved weatherboarding 50/50 mm battens / 50 mm ventilated cavity windproof building paper 150 mm mineral-wool thermal insulation between 50/150 mm timber posts and rails vapour barrier 50 mm mineral-wool thermal insulation between 50/50 mm timber battens 19 mm birch plywood 3 floor construction: 27/167 mm larch tongued-and-grooved boarding 50/50 mm battens on PVC bearing strips separating layer 100 mm reinforced concrete floor slab 200 mm bed of expanded clay 4 50/210 mm birch plywood ledge for canvases (proposed) 5 larch casement door with low-E glazing 6 terrace construction: 27/167 mm larch boarding on 50/100 mm timber bearers

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Sections through louvre element scale 1:20

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1 pivoting sunshading element: 50/50 mm stainless-steel angle frame 70/25 mm larch louvres 2 fixed glazing 3 larch sliding casement door with low-E glazing 4 120/200 mm timber post 5 stainless-steel guide track 6 140/70 mm steel channel 7 pneumatic spring extension arm

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House in Nova Scotia Architect: Brian MacKay-Lyons, Halifax

Situated on the east coast of Canada, the house occupies a drumlin dotted with trees and affords the residents a magnificent panoramic view of the hinterland and the ocean. Two trim, angular volumes with gently sloping roofs are set opposite each other, providing a new interpretation of traditional rural building forms. The roofs slope inwards towards each other and flank a courtyard, which is protected from the wind by two low walls at the sides. The roughly 180 m2 main building contains the client’s living and working quarters, while the smaller structure incorporates a barn and guest suite. The ample living space, with an integral kitchen, has windows on three sides that afford views to the covered outdoor area and the further surroundings. The closed rear part of the house is laid out on two levels. On the ground floor is the bathroom, a vestibule and a bedroom-study. The basement contains a sauna, a gym and a photo studio. In the ancillary building opposite is the so-called “barn”, with a guest tract laid out on two levels at the rear. Materials typical of the region were used in the construction of the house, which has a timber structure braced with exposed steel members. The monolithic, cubic character of the buildings is accentuated by the outer skin of cedar shingles. Applied in four layers, they are resistant to the damp maritime climate and acquire a silver-grey patina in the course of time, similar in colour to the anodized aluminium window frames. Drawn over the low-pitched roofs is a standing-seam sheetmetal covering. Internally, the dominant finishings are the polished concrete floors and the hemlock soffits, which extend out to the covered outdoor areas of the house. All inbuilt fittings, like the long kitchen strip and the many shelf units, are in pale maple. Despite its simple appearance, the house has an astonishingly complex character. Depending on the lighting conditions, one’s perception changes. At times, the two structures seem to merge with the landscape; at other moments, they are like objects of art embedded in the hilly terrain.

Section Floor plans scale 1:400

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Living room / Kitchen Bedroom Study Entrance Bathroom

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Terrace Photo studio Sauna Barn Guest apartment

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Longitudinal section house

scale 1:20

1 roof construction: standing-seam metal roofing bituminous sealing layer 200 mm thermal insulation vapour-retarding layer 12.5 mm plywood 50/250 mm softwood rafters 19 mm hemlock tongued-and-grooved boarding 2 wall construction: eastern white cedar shingles (four layers) ventilated cavity bituminous sealing layer 12.5 mm plywood 150 mm mineral-wool thermal insulation between 50/150 mm timber studding vapour-retarding layer 12.5 mm plasterboard 3 double glazing in aluminium frame 4 ground floor construction: 50 mm screed around underfloor heating 19 mm plywood 250 mm mineral-wool thermal insulation between 50/250 mm timber joists 50/100 mm battens, vapour-retarding layer 25/50 mm counterbattens 12.5 mm plasterboard 5 basement wall construction: 65 mm perimeter insulation plastic sealing layer 200 mm reinforced concrete wall 100 mm mineral-wool thermal insulation between 50/100 mm timber studding vapour-retarding layer 12.5 mm plasterboard 6 basement floor construction: 100 mm reinforced concrete floor slab with underfloor heating plastic sealing layer 60 mm layer of insulation 150 mm bed of gravel 7 150/150 mm timber post 8 impregnated terrace construction: 25/150 mm spruce boarding on 50/200 mm timber joists

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Cross-section house Horizontal section scale 1:20 1 terrace roof construction: standing-seam metal roofing bituminous sealing layer 12.5 mm plywood 50/200 mm softwood rafters 12.5 mm plywood 50/250 mm softwood joists 19 mm hemlock tongued-and-grooved boarding 2 200 mm reinforced concrete wall 65 mm thermal insulation between 50/75 mm timber studding vapour-retarding layer 12.5 mm plasterboard 3 floor construction: 50 mm screed around underfloor heating 100 mm reinforced concrete floor slab vapour-retarding layer 65 mm rigid underfloor insulation 150 mm bed of gravel 4 double glazing in aluminium frame 5 38 mm glued maple-strip worktop 6 19 mm maple cupboard fascia 7 electric heater 8 insulated column: 100/100/6 mm steel SHS with aluminium sheathing

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House near New York Architects: SR+T, Sislian Rothstein and Joel E. Towers, New York

In contrast to many of the simple holiday homes around Ballston Lake in New York state which are used only in the summer months, this house is occupied throughout the year. The design was strongly influenced by the striking topography of the location: a thinly wooded site that slopes down to the west towards the lake. The architects developed the layout in a linear form from east to west, progressing from the access route in the direction of the water. On the northern side of the house, two walls, consisting of sandblasted precast concrete elements, were erected parallel but offset to each other to form the solid spine of the building. They shield the house against the north wind and anchor it firmly in the ground. The rest of the house, in contrast, is constructed in lightweight materials – glass and wood – and opens on to the surrounding landscape. This open quality is especially evident internally. Even in the entrance area, between the concrete walls on the northern side, visitors have a view of the lake through the glazed living room facade. The open plan is designed in such a way that all spaces on the living level enjoy visual links with Ballston Lake. The south wall to the dining area deviates from the orthogonal linear layout of the house to extend the view to the water. The raking line of the bathroom wall serves a similar purpose, allowing a view from the bedroom area over the whole floor and out to the lake. The broad glazed facade to the living room affords not only an immediate experience of the landscape; it also serves to integrate the terrace into the interior space – a visual impression that is accentuated by the broad cantilevered roof. A warm-water pool sunk in the terrace with an opening in the roof above allows the occupants to bathe in direct sunlight by day and beneath the stars at night.

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Site plan scale 1:1000 North elevation Upper floor plan Ground floor plan scale 1:250 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Entrance Balcony Living room Kitchen Dining area Bedroom Heating Sports room Garage

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Section scale 1:20 1 sheet aluminium covering to edge of roof 2 ventilation opening with integrated insect screen 3 beam hanger 4 laminated timber beam 5 roof construction: roof sealing layer 12.5 mm rigid insulating slab 12.5 mm plywood thermal insulation between Å-section joists 350 mm deep: lam. timber chords; oriented-strand board webs vapour barrier 25/100 mm softwood battens 16 mm plasterboard 6 fixed wood louvres 7 balcony floor construction: 25 mm tongued-and-grooved boarding 50/100 mm bearers waterproof membrane 12.5 mm rigid insulating slab 12.5 mm plywood thermal insulation between 50/250 mm joists to falls with 50/100 mm levelling firrings 16 mm fire-resistant plasterboard 8 wall construction: 25 mm cedar boarding windproof building paper 12.5 mm plywood thermal insulation between 50/150 mm timber rails vapour-retarding layer 16 mm plasterboard 9 internal floor construction: 19 mm hardwood flooring 19 mm plywood Å-section joists 350 mm deep; cavities over basement insulated vapour barrier 16 mm fire-resistant plasterboard 10 hardwood treads and risers 11 wall construction: 180 mm sandblasted precast concrete element 43 mm rigid thermal insulation thermal insulation between 50/100 mm timber rails vapour retarding layer 16 mm plasterboard 12 2≈ 50/300 mm head plate, screw fixed to non-rusting sleeves cast into concrete 13 152/152/203/10 mm V-shaped sheet steel cast into precast concrete wall unit 14 203/305/13 mm steel plate cast into concrete foundation 15 125/125 mm connecting plate welded to 13 and 14

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House in Toronto Architects: Shim • Sutcliffe Architects, Toronto

This town house in the north-east of Toronto is tailor-made for the habits and lifestyle of its occupants. In collaboration with the client, a strict hierarchy of spaces was drawn up according to their main daytime uses. The layout of the rooms, and their sizes and heights reflect their position within this hierarchy. The spacious working area on the upper floor forms the heart of the house, where the library is also situated. The loft-like character of this tall room not only underlines the working atmosphere; it also recalls the old industrial spaces that were typical of Toronto in the past. The shelf system for the client’s extensive collection of books was designed by the architects as a dominant element of this space. With its more modest dimensions and low ceiling height (2.30 m), the “domestic” zone of this town house, and in particular the kitchen, would seem to find its model in the country cottages of Canada. The spatial organization is compact and almost without corridor zones. The entrance provides direct access from the outside to the kitchen-cum-living room. From here, the staircase – open on both floors – leads up to the first-floor office. The seamless spatial transitions facilitate an effective use of the living areas and accentuate the links between the two realms. Externally, the 5.20-metre-wide and 10.60-metre-long building is set off from the surrounding developments by its geometrically articulated wood facade. After the Great Fire of Toronto in 1849, regulations were enacted that, until recently, required the external walls of houses to be built in stone or brickwork. With its timber-frame structure, this is one of the first buildings of its kind to be erected in the urban area. The wood facade, with its red protective coating, consists largely of plywood sheeting, with a smaller area of horizontal boarding. The joints between the plywood panels are sealed with silicone and covered with wood strips. As a fire-protection measure, the cladding to the wall adjoining the neighbouring site was executed in cement-bonded chipboard with a twohour fire resistance.

Site plan scale 1:1500 South elevation Section Upper floor plan Ground floor plan scale 1:250

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Facade details Horizontal and vertical sections scale 1:10

glass-fibre insulation 51/152 mm timber studs plastic sheet vapour barrier plasterboard fixed glazing maple strip flooring facade cladding: 25/102 mm softwood boarding 76/76/3 mm steel corner angle 19/19 mm wood corner bead vertical cover strip over panel joints horizontal cover strip over panel joints

1 roof construction: low-slope bituminous shingles roof sealing layers 12.7 mm plywood 2 wall construction: 12.7 mm Douglas fir plywood facade cladding vertical battens moisture-diffusing waterproof membrane on timber boarding

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Corner detail A plywood panel facade cladding

Corner detail B timber boarding as facade cladding

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Cross-section through bookshelves scale 1:10 1 wood nosing 2 19 mm horizontal and vertical wood cover strips 3 maple-veneered MDF board mounted on bearers

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19/89 mm maple upstand 19 mm MDF board Ø 9.5 mm stainless-steel rod foot to shelf element: Ø 27 mm tube with tubular sleeves welded to flat steel discs 8 maple strip flooring 9 plasterboard fascia

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House in Kawasaki Architect: Kazunari Sakamoto, Tokyo

Designed for the architect’s own use, this house stands on a sloping, north-east-facing site in Kawasaki, a district in the greater Tokyo area. The dwelling is situated in a typical, densely built residential neighbourhood with nondescript, lowrise developments. At first sight, the house would seem to be nothing very spectacular itself. Occupying almost the entire polygonal area of the site at the junction between two roads, it is a structure in which no two outer walls are parallel. The stone-clad concrete plinth was conceived as a link to the steeply sloping street and the immediate surroundings. The entrance to this simple house is via a covered access and parking space deeply incised in the volume of the building. From there, a series of broad, shallow steps rises through a gradually narrowing space to the terrace at the rear. Parallel to this, an internal flight of stairs extends up from the entrance to the spacious living room and study on the upper floor, where sliding doors and casements open on to the terrace. From the entrance, a further route leads down past the bathroom to the bright, open-plan kitchen-living space and to a tiny Japanese garden at the side. In other words, these gently rising stairs create a single space that winds up through the entire house, defining the different living realms. With these angular, flowing internal forms, the architect is able to exploit the dimensions of the site to the full, at the same time creating a high degree of habitable quality and a distinct spatial experience. The internal wall and soffit linings and the large areas of shelving are constructed with untreated Japanese lime, a wood that changes its character as it ages. Juxtaposed with these finishings is antique furniture that bears the marks of past use; and the house is filled with the owner’s large collections of art and objects. For him, the passage of time is an important aspect which he seeks to make legible in the design. Drawn over the upper floor with its column-free timber structure is a large, irregularly shaped roof. For pragmatic reasons, the ridge line is rotated on plan: the warm-air underfloorheating system is served by rectangular solar collectors, which have to face due south. Fixed to the rafters, these standard-size panels form the main roof surface. The roofscape is complemented by flat-pitched areas of metal sheeting in the peripheral zones.

Site plan scale 1:750 Axonometric (not to scale)

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“I think the space that forms our environment should not be space within such a fixed strong system, that it should be more free, open, and released.” (Kazunari Sakamoto)

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Sections Floor plans scale 1:250 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Forecourt Entrance Bathroom Tatami mats Kitchen Garden Living room and study 8 Terrace

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1 roof construction: 0.4 mm PTFE-coated sheet metal bituminous waterproof membrane 12 mm fireproof sheeting aramid-fibre layer 12 mm plywood 100 mm glass-wool thermal insulation between 38/286 mm timber rafters 100 mm glass-wool thermal insulation 30/30 mm wood lathing 5.5 mm plywood with 4 mm Japanese lime veneer 2 warm-air solar-collector panel

3 sliding aluminium casement with double glazing 4 2x 38/286 mm timber post-andrail-structure 5 upper floor construction: 5 mm cork tiles, 15 mm plywood 38/235 mm timber joists 9.5 mm plasterboard 6 wall construction: 15 mm cement-fibre slab 40 mm ventilated cavity 90/180 mm timber posts vapour-retarding layer 50 mm glass-wool thermal insulation, vapour barrier

12 mm plywood with 4 mm Japanese lime veneer 7 ground floor construction: 5 mm cork tiles, 12 mm plywood 20 mm chipboard 193 mm double-floor system for warm-air heating 100 mm concrete thermal storage element 300 mm polystyrene thermal insulation 150 mm reinforced concrete slab perimeter insulation vapour-retarding layer granular subbase

gravel bed 8 cupboard fitting: 12 mm plywood with 4 mm Japanese lime veneer 9 55 mm tatami mat 10 terrace construction: 180–210 mm reinforced concrete slab finished to falls 25 mm polyurethane thermal insulation 9.5 mm plasterboard 11 140 mm tuff stone backfill, vapour-retarding layer perimeter insulation 220 mm reinforced concrete wall

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Longitudinal section scale 1:50

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Weekend House near Tokyo Architects: Office of Ryue Nishizawa, Tokyo

This secluded weekend house, a place of peace and relaxation, is situated in a forest area not far from Tokyo. The brief required the architect to give the building the spatial quality of a small museum and to create an attractive ambience for private exhibitions. For security reasons, the facade was designed as a largely closed skin, clad in galvanized corrugated steel sheeting, which at first suggests that the structure is quite unrelated to its natural surroundings. The interior of this “gallery-house”, however, shows that the motifs of the forest recur in the design of the rooms. The basic structure, consisting of simple, slender timber posts laid out to a closely spaced square grid at 2.4 ≈ 2.4 m centres, facilitates a flexible division of the 13 ≈ 13 m plan area. Three courtyards of different sizes separate the private from the less private zones. The room-height glazing to these patios also articulates the interior of the house, creating the impression that it is a large continuous space. Only the sanitary cell is enclosed in non-transparent walls. The kitchen zone is defined by a free-standing counter with cooking facilities. The patios open up the tight volume of the house and allow light and air to enter. The external walls to these courtyards consist of semi-transparent, perforated, corrugated metal sheeting, which can be opened to provide broad views out to the surrounding forest. The openings in the roof over the planted patios are covered with spaced timber planks between which daylight falls, creating graphic, strip-like patterns on the floor. As a result of the courtyard glazing, the plants in these spaces appear to be growing in the interior of the house. This and the striking play of shadows evoke an impression of small, forest-like clearings within the building. In addition, the glass surfaces and the shiny ceiling result in numerous reflections of these motifs, visually multiplying the array of timber columns, for example, and seeming to increase them in length. Depending on the position of the sun, the perceptible boundaries of this strictly geometric space are dissolved by the play of light and reflections.

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Site plan scale 1:2000 Section aa • Plan scale 1:250 Section bb scale 1:100

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Living area Salon Private space Traditional Japanese room 5 Courtyard

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dd Vertical section cc • Horizontal section dd Details scale 1:10 1 roof construction: 2 mm sealing layer 30 mm foamed plastic insulation 4 mm wood-fibre board bituminous sealing layer 12 mm plywood cavity with 100 mm thermal insulation 30/60 mm battens 9.5 mm coated plasterboard

2 38/184 mm timber planks 3 wall construction: galvanized corrugated steel sheeting (12 mm deep) 10/30 mm battens sealing layer on 9 mm plywood 50 mm glass-wool insulation between 50/50 mm timber posts 9 mm plywood 9.5 mm plasterboard with sliced veneer 4 80/80 mm timber post

5 sliding door: 8 mm float glass in aluminium frame 6 fixed glazing: 10 mm float glass in 25/50/3 mm aluminium channel section 7 drainage channel for condensation 8 4.5/70 mm steel plate 9 door to courtyard: 1.6 mm perforated steel sheeting 45/100 mm wood frame galvanized, corrugated, perforated steel sheeting (12 mm deep)

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Weekend House in Australia Architect: Sean Godsell, Melbourne

Situated alongside a sand dune on the south coast of Australia, this weekend house stands on a sloping site in an extensive open landscape. The dwelling has a 30 ≈ 7.2 m load-bearing skeleton-frame structure in oxidized steel, which is left exposed within the building and which also supports the water-bearing layer of the outer skin. The roof and the facade are covered with large areas of glazing and are in a similar form of construction. This simple cubic structure is enclosed within a second skin, consisting of a curtain of slender sawnwood strips, with an intermediate space between the two layers. The outer skin filters incoming light as well as views in and out of the building. On the north and east sides of the main living space, a covered veranda has been created between the core structure and the outer skin, forming a protected outdoor extension of the internal space. The glazing and the pivoting wood-louvre elements can be fully opened in this area to allow a free transition between the interior and exterior realms. The spatial programme is as simple as the geometry of the building. The brief required a living room, bedroom and library as well as various attached outdoor areas. On the ground floor, the two-storey-high living space has a fully glazed end face that is open to sunlight from the north. The lower part of the glazing can be pivoted up into a horizontal position like a garage gate. Designed as a closed cube suspended over the living room, the bedroom repeats the house-within-a-house principle. Native jarrah was used for the wood strips. In view of its great hardness, it was possible to cut extremely slender crosssections. Depending on the angle of view, therefore, the outer skin can appear almost transparent, and with the changing incidence of the sun, attractive lighting effects occur both internally and externally. The juxtaposition of Asiatic and European architectural elements underlines the special character of the location. With a veranda integrated into the volume of the house, the architect adopts elements of classical Japanese design; while the living space is an expression of the “sun room” found in many Australian dwellings.

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House in Münster Architects: Gabriele Andreae, Münster Ulrich Kötter, Münster

Laid out along one edge of the site in Münster, this elongated house, which belongs to the architect herself, is oriented almost entirely to the south, with views of a fine stock of old trees. The wish for a bright domestic atmosphere with close links to the garden is evident in the open design of the south face with its generous areas of glazing. Almost all the principal rooms are located on this side and have their own direct access to the outdoor realm. Glazed doors, room-height window elements and horizontal pivoting glass louvres allow a great deal of light and air into the interior. A broad roof projection and the first floor balcony, both extending over the entire south face of the house, protect the rooms from excessive summer sunshine. The relationship between the different materials of the structure and the facade was one of the principal aspects of the design. The load-bearing structure of the house consists of a steel skeleton framework of slender columns and beams. In contrast, the posts and rails of the facade are in wood. In addition to the various glazing elements, larch-veneered plywood was used for the infill panels to individual bays of the facade. The thermal insulation to the timber elements is housed in fitted wood frames and clad on the inside with plasterboard. Screwed-on aluminium strips accentuate the articulation of the facade and protect the post-and-rail construction from the effects of the weather. The house consists of two tracts linked by a glass-covered intermediate strip. Instead of a basement, a single-storey annex was erected next to the main building. It contains a workshop, a utilities room and a guest room. Like the facade, the plan of the house was also meant to express the open quality of the design. The steel skeletonframe structure facilitated a free layout without the limitations imposed by load-bearing walls. Large sliding doors and spatial links without doors create flowing transitions between the rooms and convey a generous sense of space. Site plan scale 1:1500 Ground floor plan Upper floor plan West elevation North elevation Section scale 1:400 1 Workshop 2 Guest room 3 Study

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Details: vertical section cc Standard details: horizontal sections door at glazed corner closed corner scale 1:20 1 corrugated aluminium sheeting (18/76 mm) 2 60/240-50 mm laminated timber rafters with sheet zinc covering and Ø 33 mm tubular aluminium trellis for climbing plants 3 steel Å-section outer longitudinal beam 100 mm deep 4 steel Å-section column 100 mm deep with footplate 5 steel Å-section inner longitudinal beam 140 mm deep 6 steel Å-section column 140 mm deep 7 55/120 mm laminated timber posts and rails with white-glazed finish 8 20/55/20 mm anodized aluminium channel-section fixing strip 9 pivoting glass louvres: double glazing in aluminium frames 10 120 mm reinforced concrete floor slab on steel Å-section cross-beams 140 mm deep; plastered soffit 11 38/90 mm impregnated larch strips with glazed finish 12 steel bearer: 2≈ 60/30 mm angles 13 fixed double glazing 14 infill panel: 35 mm waterproof, vapour-tight sandwich slabs, consisting of two plywood sheets with foamed insulation core and larch veneer externally windproof sheeting 60 mm rigid-foam insulation vapour barrier 2≈ 12.5 mm plasterboard 15 basalt pavings in fine gravel bed 16 sheet aluminium flashing, friction fixed 17 rigid-foam drainage sheet 18 anodized sheet aluminium drip 19 larch-veneered waterproof-bonded chipboard fascia 20 oriel soffit: waterproof-bonded chipboard, smoothed and painted white; invisibly screwed to timber supporting structure, with intermediate layer of thermal insulation 21 double posts next to column 22 30/30 mm anodized aluminium corner angle, adhesive fixed

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House in Hernals, Vienna Architects: Henke and Schreieck Architects, Vienna

This single-family house was erected on a narrow, sloping site in Hernals, a district of Vienna distinguished by its green, leafy gardens. An old orchard to the north and a view of the city to the south led to the design of a building that is fully open in these two directions. The steeply sloping site was terraced with retaining walls in a way that allows direct access to the garden from both floor levels. A flight of external steps leads up from the road past the garage – built into the slope – to a black brick retaining wall at the entrance on the east side of the house. The wall continues internally, dividing the ground floor layout into two parts. From the entrance hall, which provides access to the south-facing children’s rooms and the ancillary spaces on the lower floor level, a staircase rises to the upper floor. Here, the staircase space, crowned by a lantern light, separates the library and living room from the kitchen and the parents’ bedroom. A room-height cupboard element serves to divide off the sleeping area and create distinct zones in the otherwise open-plan layout. The main rooms all enjoy direct access to the outdoor realm. Adjoining the kitchen on the orchard side is a large terrace, while the south-facing living room continues externally in the form of a slenderly dimensioned steel balcony that extends over the entire width of the house. The cantilevered balcony, with its grid of simple steel sections, demonstrates the loadbearing construction of the building, which consists essentially of a steel skeleton frame. On the ground floor, narrow, continuous window strips beneath the floor slab accentuate the lightness of the structure by legibly separating the walls from the ceiling. Like the internal finishings of the house, the facade is dominated by the use of wood. The design concept foresees a change in the coloration of the material as a result of ageing and weathering. Both the boarding to the terraces and the facade panels to the long faces were, therefore, executed in untreated larch. Site plan scale 1:1000 East elevation Ground floor plan Upper floor plan Sections scale 1:250 1 2 3 4 5

Children‘s room Bedroom Library Kitchen Living room

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steel Å-beam 160 mm deep steel Å-beam 180 mm deep steel channel section 160 mm deep steel Å-beam 160 mm deep 100/100/6.3 mm steel SHS Ø 12 mm steel rod 100/100/5 mm steel SHS 120/120/5 mm steel SHS Ø 90/2 mm tubular steel column Ø 60/2 mm steel tube: support to channel section for assembly of sunblind aluminium facade with bottom-hung and sliding casement elements roof construction: extensive planting two-layer elastomer-bitumen seal, the upper layer root-resistant rigid-foam thermal insulation finished to falls vapour barrier birch plywood 100/180 mm laminated timber rafters screw fixed between steel Å-beams 180 mm deep floor construction: 20 mm oak parquet 60 mm screed separating layer 30 mm impact-sound insulation vapour barrier 25 mm composite wood board 140/220 mm sawn timber joists wood firrings 22 mm birch plywood 80/30 mm untreated larch slat paving three-ply untreated larch facade sheeting rainwater pipe

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House in Almelo Architect: Dirk Jan Postel, Kraaijvanger • Urbis, Rotterdam

Viewed from the “public” side, this house in Almelo resembles a closed block, the smooth, opaque surface of which provides no clue to the life on the inside. The separation of public and private space and the interplay between open and closed states in the facade formed part of the design concept, which is evident above all in the choice of materials. On three sides, the house is enclosed in a layer of printed glass set a few centimetres in front of the actual external wall and the window openings. In this way, an intermediate space is created with a layer of air that acts as an additional form of insulation. The closed character of the facade is interrupted only in front of the covered entrance, where a square opening punctures the seemingly hermetic outer skin. Seen from the outside by day, the glass panels are by no means transparent. The fine grid of dots, applied by screen printing, creates an opaque surface in which the trees and surrounding buildings are reflected. In the evening, the effect of the material is reversed: the window areas in the inner skin become visible as a result of the internal lighting, and one can look through them from the outside. In the openness of its design, the southern facade of the house – the private, garden face – forms a deliberate contrast. The closed areas are clad in red-stained cedar, and the overall appearance is dominated by the structural grid of the external wall. The compact volume of the building opens out here into a projecting conservatory, the steel structure and almost frameless glazed sliding elements of which are light and slenderly dimensioned. Internally, the dominant space on the ground floor is the ample living and dining room. The organization of the private rooms on the upper floor is to a smaller scale and follows the grid of the steel columns. Between the areas of pale birch cladding, the galvanized columns form visible articulating elements. The architect was able to realize this model-like house in the context of a new development area that was virtually free of regulatory design and spatial constraints.

Site plan scale 1:2000 Ground floor plan Upper floor plan Section aa scale 1:250

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sheet aluminium covering 40/40/4 mm galvanized steel angle 80/98 mm timber plate roof sealing layer on insulation finished to falls 17 mm red cedar boarding with ventilated cavity to rear 2 mm galvanized sheet-steel covering, bent to shape 8 mm sheet-steel upstand section, bent to shape stainless-steel sliding-door gear with point fixings 60/60/6.3 mm galvanized steel SHS column 140/140/4 mm galvanized steel SHS column

11 fixed glazing: 8 mm toughened safety glass 12 glazing to sliding element: 8 mm toughened safety glass with adhesive-fixed aluminium edge protection 13 pine sliding door with double glazing 14 double glazing in fixed wood frame 15 stone threshold 16 plastic track 17 50/60/3 mm stainless-steel plate fixing for glass, bolt fixed 18 stainless-steel distance piece 60 mm long 19 200/100/15 mm welded steel angle with 10/200 mm steel stiffening plate

20 wall construction: 6 mm white-printed toughened safety glass 44 mm ventilated cavity 3 mm fibre-cement sheeting 100 mm rock-wool insulation between 120/38 mm timber posts vapour barrier 12.5 mm plasterboard 12 mm birch laminated construction board with clear finish on 33 mm battens 21 15 mm pine laminated construction board window lining, painted 22 wood frame with double glazing 23 steel angle bearer 24 gravel strip on soil 25 precast concrete plinth 26 raised floor-slab system

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1 17 mm red cedar cladding with rear ventilated cavity 2 fixed opaque glazing: laminated safety glass consisting of 2x 5 mm toughened glass with double PVB foil layer, fixed with silicone adhesive 3 4 mm anodized sheet aluminium, bent to shape 4 60/60/6.3 mm galvanized steel SHS column 5 sliding door: 8 mm toughened safety glass with adhesive-fixed aluminium edge protection 6 fixed glazing: 8 mm toughened safety glass jointed with silicone 7 3 mm anodized aluminium panel with 30 mm rigid-foam insulation with laminated surface 8 30/30/3 mm anodized aluminium channel-section fixing strip 9 140/140/4 mm galvanized steel SHS column 10 fixed wood casement with double glazing 11 50/60/3 mm stainless-steel fixing plate for glazing, bolt fixed 12 stainless-steel distance piece 13 wall construction: 6 mm white-printed toughened safety glass 44 mm ventilated cavity 3 mm fibre-cement sheeting 100 mm rock-wool insulation between 120/38 mm timber posts vapour barrier 12.5 mm plasterboard 33 mm battens 12 mm birch laminated construction board with clear finish 14 40/170 mm steel angle 15 15 mm pine laminated construction board window lining, painted 16 double glazing 17 40/40/4 mm anodized aluminium angle

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House in Osaka Architects: Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Tokyo

Situated in a central district of Osaka that is still distinguished by traditional Japanese wooden houses with tiled roofs, this building was designed for a married couple and one of their grandmothers. The site is enclosed on all sides by concrete walls that are as high as the house itself and which serve to screen the private spaces. The only opening in the outer walls is a simple doorway, through which there is access from the street to a small courtyard. From here, a flight of stairs leads to the upper storey, where the living and dining areas are located with an adjoining roof terrace. At the far end of the living room, another external staircase leads down to the quiet bedrooms on the ground floor, where only softly filtered light enters. In view of the restricted site area, these rooms enjoy an unexpected spatial dimension through the adjoining courtyards. The bedrooms open in different directions, so that they are largely screened from overlooking and form independent realms. From the courtyard on the entrance side, there is also direct access to the grandmother’s room. The seemingly simple yet highly individual design concept goes beyond mere functional needs, as is shown by the internal system of routes via courtyards and staircases. The architect seeks to achieve a degree of spatial complexity and the dissolution of the distinction between inside and outside. The scheme also contains a reference to man’s reduced physical contact with nature in the city. The direct experience of wind, sun, rain and sometimes even snow, and the sensation of passing days and seasons call for a distinct lifestyle on the part of the occupants. The architect deliberately exploits the contrast between the bare concrete walls and the restrained planting of the courtyards as part of the design concept, seeking to enhance the sensuous effect of both these elements.

Site plan scale 1:1500 Section Plan of roof Upper floor plan Ground floor plan scale 1:250 1 2 3 4 5 6

Courtyard Bedroom Store Void Terrace Living-dining room

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House in Tokyo Architects: Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects, Tokyo

Site plan scale 1:1500 East elevation South elevation Ground floor plan Upper floor plan Sections scale 1:250

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Situated in a residential area in the centre of Tokyo, the house was planned for a designer couple and their son. It unites working and living space beneath a single roof, deliberately dissolving the spatial divisions between professional and private life. The street front, with its matt-coated glazing, affords no clue to the use of the building. Behind the strict, geometric facade are a garage and, above it, a studio – the “ideas workshop” of the occupants. The entrance, situated in the long face, leads into a hall space that extends up to first floor level and provides access to the individual rooms. The ground floor accommodates the smaller and more intimate spaces of the house, including the bedrooms and sanitary facilities. The upper floor, in contrast, is divided into various zones by room-height sliding elements. The partitions can be moved aside to create broad openings and allow a continuous view through the entire storey. The flowing transitions between the studios and the living room reflect the lifestyle of the occupants, for whom professional and private activities are inextricably linked. In contrast to the introverted studio space, the living-dining area contains a large picture window that opens on to the adjoining garden. The roof terrace, which is reached from first floor level via an external staircase, provides an outdoor sitting area and affords further views of the surroundings. The basic load-bearing structure of the house consists of three concrete slab-like frames of different lengths. The concrete walls are lined internally with plasterboard. In choosing the materials for the dividing elements, a distinction was made between the various living areas. The bedrooms, for example, are divided by wood panels, whereas on the upper floor, perspex sliding elements were used to accentuate the quality of spatial transparency. In these elements, one recognizes the influence of traditional Japanese architecture, expressed here through the use of new materials.

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House near Lugano Architects: Giraudi Wettstein Architekten, Lugano

The house stands like a strict, white, cubic sculpture in the Ticino landscape, the special topography of which exerted a strong influence on the formal design. The orientation of the volume, the line of the walls and the arrangement of the window openings are all directly related to the surroundings. The elongated form of the house is set at right angles to the contours of the slope, so that the narrow end faces are aligned with the mountains on both sides of the valley. The actual links between the building and its surroundings, however, originate in the interior of the house. On the upper floor, where the entrance is situated, a low vestibule provides access up a short flight of steps to the elevated, open living area. This space is distinguished by its greater room height, which is also legible on the outside. From the living room, too, one becomes aware of the visual links established by the windows, which focus on and frame striking topographical features of the surrounding landscape. The broad areas of glazing in the narrow end faces on the upper floor afford views of the mountains, while the smaller openings allow glimpses of a nearby chestnut tree and the tower of the village church. At the western end, one of the external walls is splayed out from the basic rectilinear form of the building to capture a view of the mountain peak opposite. Internally, the house is dominated by the rough surfaces of the concrete structure, juxtaposed with the smooth grey- and yellow-painted surfaces of a large cupboard element. This central, 12-metre-long piece of inbuilt furniture divides and articulates the elongated plan of the house. On the upper floor, the cupboard serves as a balustrade and dividing element, marking off the open staircase zone. On the ground floor, it assumes the function of a wall, through which access to the bedrooms and ancillary areas is via a series of lock-like spaces. On both floors, this ordering element accommodates objects in everyday use and thus reduces the need for additional furnishings in the rooms.

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House in Li Curt Architects: Conradin Clavuot, Chur Norbert Mathis, Chur

With its restrained design, this house in the Puschav Valley in the Grisons, Switzerland, seems almost like an everyday functional object. The valley itself, roughly 300 metres above sea level, is surrounded by 4,000-metre-high mountains and has a damp, windy climate with only short periods of sunshine. To resist such conditions, a greater urban building density is traditional in this region. In that respect, therefore, the development plan for the new Li Curt residential area, which foresees a series of detached houses, seems uncharacteristic. It breaks down the urban structure and dissolves the relationships that traditionally existed between neighbours. For the present project, therefore, the architect turned to a tried-and-trusted regional type, consisting of a simple volume constructed with solid materials. At the rear, the lowest storey of the house is built into the slope of the ground, while the side walls extend out to the road, establishing a link with the surroundings. The colours of the materials reflect those of the local environment, thus accentuating the vernacular qualities of the house. The rough rendering lends the external face of the brick walls a lively, tactile quality; and although the windows seem to be positioned freely in the facades, their arrangement is based on a general order found in the area. As a means of protection against the weather, the wood casements are set deep in the facade. In addition, the openings are accentuated by smooth, raised surrounds. The layout of the living areas is like that of a single-space structure, extending here over three floors and with a central staircase. The timber finishings form a striking contrast to the solid outer enclosure. A vertically stacked timber-plank floor supported by downstand beams spans the entire width of the house without intermediate columns. The internal spaces are articulated by inbuilt fittings, which define specific zones and recesses and which accommodate functional spaces like the sanitary rooms and the kitchen. The interior of the house has been left largely in a raw state, with unpainted plastered walls, sawn-finished wood surfaces, and boldly structured woodstrip flooring. One carefully elaborated detail, however, stands out from the otherwise simple standard of finishings: a board over the window openings for fixing curtains and light fittings.

Site plan scale 1:4000 Sectional perspective (not to scale)

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Vertical section through entrance scale 1:10 1 50 mm layer of washed gravel (15-30 mm grade) 5 mm separating layer 10 mm two-layer bituminous roof seal 25 mm softwood boarding 60/60 mm bearers waterproof layer 120 mm rock-wool thermal insulation between 2x 60/60 mm battens 2 mm vapour barrier 210 mm brick roof elements 15 mm cement-lime plaster 2 6 mm sheet-copper covering 3 27 mm three-ply softwood lam. sheeting 4 wall construction: 20 renovating rendering 365 mm vertically brick wall (247/365/238 mm) 15 mm cement-lime plaster 5 27 mm solid fir floor boarding 30 mm bearers 40 mm cross-bearers 8 mm felt separating layer 120 mm timber stacked-plank floor 390 mm in-situ concrete downstand beam 6 150/65/7 mm steel channel 7 40/220 mm solid larch window strip with light fitting 8 entrance door: double glazing in 76/70 mm solid larch frame 9 insulating plaster 10 25/35 mm larch-strip threshold 11 180 mm asphalt 10 mm two-layer bituminous seal 120 mm foamed glass insulation 250 mm reinforced concrete floor slab

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House in Munich Architects: Thomas M. Hammer and Doris Schmid-Hammer, Munich

The basic idea underlying the design of this housing ensemble was to allow the two clients – two brothers – to live independently, yet in a loose relationship with each other, with scope to realize their own concepts of life. The outcome was two different volumes, linked along the street face by a high wall. An approach zone is created along this front by a continuous canopy strip covering the entrances and gateways. The individual lifestyles of the brothers are revealed most clearly in the layout of the houses. The partly timber structure, for example, is planned for the needs of a housesharing group: a kitchen-cum-living area forms the communal heart of the house, while each of the residents has his or her own living-working room – all of which are of equal size. In the white-rendered brick house designed for family occupation, on the other hand, almost the entire ground floor is taken up by the open living and dining area. The various private rooms are situated on the upper floor and in the attic storey. Depending on the size of the family, they can serve as bedrooms, working or children’s rooms. Despite the limited dimensions, the ingenious organization of the layout results in an interesting sequence of spaces, visual links and views out of the house. These aspects of the design are accentuated by the well-considered lighting concept.

Site plan scale 1:2000 Section • Plans Ground floor plan Upper floor plan Attic storey plan scale 1:400

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5 stainless-steel pivoting knob for hooked locking bolt 6 Ø 22 mm galvanized steel tube 7 35/75/5 mm steel angle 8 75/100/5 mm steel angle 9 50/97 mm larch bearers 10 50/75/5 mm steel angle 11 channel-section track for plastic guide roller on steel plate 12 aluminium angle protecting strip

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Staircase detail scale 1:10 1 balustrade covering: 36 mm laminated construction board 2 plaster edge bead 3 plaster 4 plastic-foam strip 5 40 mm oak tread 6 levelling bolt (Ø 10 mm) 7 coir insulation

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House in Erfurt Architect: Silvia Britz, Erfurt

The house was conceived for a married couple who are booksellers. It was to be simple yet well-designed, providing an open atmosphere for the family and sufficient space for innumerable books. With her restrained design approach, the architect created a built form that met the clients’ expectations. Set on an elongated site with a stock of old fruit trees, the compact volume of the house has a simple, rendered facade with rectangular punched openings. There are only a few small windows facing north or overlooking the road to the east, whereas on the south side, tall glass doors and casements open up the internal spaces to the garden. A dominant feature of this face are the sliding louvred elements in larch, which provide the necessary sunshading and visually accentuate the rows of glazed doors. To ensure low building costs, the planning confined itself to essentials. There is no basement, for example, and no usable attic space beneath the shallow-pitched roof. Since the owners do not use a car, a garage has also been omitted for the present, but it will be possible to integrate one harmoniously into the design at a later date. A broad peripheral eaves projection protects the external walls against the weather and lends the house a southern character. The internal spatial design reflects the clients’ wishes for a quality of openness between rooms. Access to the house is via a small, lock-like entrance space that leads to an open vestibule immediately adjoining the kitchen-cum-living room. Flowing transitions between the rooms are achieved by broad sliding and folding doors next to the outer walls. Direct access is provided from the dining to the living area and from there to the library, where the floor level is sunk in part to provide additional height for bookshelves. A link with the upper floor was also created in the central zone around the staircase in the form of an open space and gallery. The gallery provides access to the bedrooms and also accommodates part of the owners’ wealth of books.

Site plan scale 1:2000 Section Ground floor plan Upper floor plan scale 1:250

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1 wall construction: 24/40 mm larch boarding 24 mm battens/cavity black fibre matting 60 mm thermal insulation 240 mm brickwork 12–15 mm two-layer gypsum plaster 2 24 mm laminated construction board 3 roof construction: sheet zinc covering 24 mm sawn softwood matchboarding 50/160 mm rafters void 160 mm thermal insulation vapour barrier 165 mm prestressed hollow concrete slabs 4 75/180 mm cantilevered brackets: laminated construction board fixed to rafters with straps 5 100/180 mm softwood trimmer 6 balustrade: 40/4 mm galvanized steel flats with larch handrail 7 sliding shutter: 40/60/4 mm steel angle frame 20/60 mm larch boarding infill 8 larch plank paving on 100/140 mm timber bearers 9 wall construction: 20 mm two-layer lightweight rendering with felt-floated surface 365 mm vertically cored brick wall 12–15 mm two-layer gypsum plaster 10 double glazing (4 + 16 + 4 mm); inner pane in obscured glass 11 26 mm sandwich slab 12 wall and door construction: laminated wood sheets on timber frame insulating slabs with vapour-retarding layer; with cut grooves externally 5 mm wide, 3–4 mm deep

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House in Italy Architects: Döring Dahmen Joeressen, Düsseldorf Wolfgang Döring, Michael Dahmen, Elmar Joeressen

Set in the gently rolling hills of Lazio in central Italy, the house has a simple, geometric form, the character of which is defined largely by the solid, protective stone outer walls. Seen against this pared-down architectural background, the delicate, pliant shapes of the specially planted olive trees are like organic sculptures. The two-storey house stands on an agricultural estate with other farm buildings such as barns, stables and staff quarters. The design draws on traditional forms of construction in the region, with stone walls, flat-pitched roofs and gable ends that extend up above the roof slopes. While the layout is based on a 5.40 ≈ 5.40 m grid, the length and width of the building were determined to a large extent by the contours of the site. At the rear, the structure is built slightly into the slope. Despite its unassuming appearance, the house possesses a wide range of spatial qualities, as can be seen in the twostorey courtyard and the terrace. The main line of approach is from the valley side via the lower level. The small entrance court, which serves as an outdoor reception area, provides access to the office and the utility spaces on this floor, and to a small guest apartment at one end. The main living areas, situated on the upper level, are directly linked with the large terrace. Laid out around this outdoor space in an L-shaped form are the kitchen, the elongated living room, the bathroom and bedroom. The structure, consisting of an earthquake-resistant reinforced concrete skeleton frame with brick infill panels, is faced with a skin of precisely squared tuff blocks. The thermal storage capacity of the solid walls – penetrated by only a few carefully dimensioned openings – prevents overheating of the internal spaces in summer and rapid cooling in winter. Site plan scale 1:1000 Floor plans scale 1:400 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

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Hall Guest room Courtyard Office Cellar space Kitchen Living room Bedroom Terrace

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House in Berlin Architects: David Chipperfield, London/Berlin

Erected in a fashionable district in south-west Berlin, the house draws on models from early Modern Movement design. The precise, geometric formal language, for example, makes reference to brick buildings created in the 1920s, such as Mies van der Rohe’s Lange and Esters Villas in Krefeld. Viewed from the road, the house at first appears to be an almost impenetrable block. On closer examination, though, one sees that the three-storey structure is made up of various cubic elements that express the different spatial needs formulated in the demanding brief. At the same time, these elements interact strongly with the external space. The individual rooms were carefully designed, not only in response to functional needs, but in terms of their proportions and the use of materials. Despite the division of the layout into discrete units, visual axes were created that convey an impression of flowing spatial transitions. From street level, a broad, gently rising external flight of brick steps leads up to the spacious reception and living areas on the slightly raised ground floor. The rooms are laid out in an L-shaped form about an enclosed, south-facing courtyard incised in the overall volume. In addition, the 3.7-metre-high living space opens via room-height glass sliding doors to an outdoor terrace. At the heart of the house, the two-flight staircase is contained within a closed core with a roof light at the top. The client’s private realm is on the first floor; on the lower ground floor are guest rooms and a swimming pool. The load-bearing structure is in reinforced concrete, but the hand-made bricks are the dominant feature of the house. The facings lend the building a sense of solidity and volume. The rough surface and warm, mottled colours of the brickwork create a lively contrast to the smooth precision of the large areas of steel-framed glazing, which open the house to the verdant surroundings. Site plan scale 1:4000

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1 sheet-copper covering to upstand 2 40 mm bed of gravel on separating layer 10 mm two-layer bituminous roof seal 160 mm polystyrene thermal insulation 200 mm reinforced concrete roof slab 20 mm gypsum plaster with smooth finish 3 brick-clad precast concrete element 4 sliding door: steel frame with double glazing 5 115 mm facing skin in hand-made bricks 70 mm mineral-wool thermal insulation 350 mm reinforced concrete wall 22 mm mineral-wool thermal insulation 52 mm facing skin in hand-made bricks 6 balcony balustrade: 80/25 mm steel flats 7 30 mm stone pavings 20–30 mm bed of mortar 60 mm cement-and-sand screed separating layer; two-layer bituminous seal 100 mm polystyrene thermal insulation separating layer 200 mm reinforced concrete floor slab 8 25 mm wood boarding, polythene sheeting 70 mm screed around underfloor heating 25 mm impact-sound insulation 30 mm levelling layer of insulation 180 mm reinforced concrete floor slab 12.5 mm plasterboard 9 25 mm wood boarding; polythene sheeting 70 mm screed around underfloor heating 25 mm impact-sound insulation 30 mm levelling layer of insulation 380 mm reinforced concrete floor slab 12.5 mm plasterboard 10 22 mm timber strips on 60 mm bearers 170 mm bed of gravel between strip foundations 8 mm protective building mat two-layer bituminous seal 100 mm polystyrene thermal insulation 200 mm reinforced concrete floor slab

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House in Moledo Architect: Eduardo Souto de Moura, Oporto

Nestling against a terraced hillside, the “Casa Moledo” enjoys an attractive view of the Atlantic coast in the distance. The house is the outcome of a creative design process, conducted in close collaboration with the client and extending over a period of six years. A germinal aspect of the design was the existing character of the site with its irregular terraces supported by old stone walls. The architect had the steps of the hillside reshaped, yet retained the original overall appearance. He located the house in such a way that it seems to merge with the slope and is scarcely visible from below. The clearest token of the building’s presence is the flat roof, recognizable as an artificial platform with minimal chimney stacks, roof lights and ventilation structures on top. The facade overlooking the sea is like a glazed extension of the retaining wall. Entering the house from this side, one immediately finds oneself in the spacious living room, the atmosphere of which is determined to a large extent by an exposed granite wall and the extensive use of wood. Along the rear face, a long corridor provides access to the linear sequence of rooms. On this side, too, the facade is fully glazed and gives on to a narrow, courtyard-like external space that separates the building from the wall of rock behind. One perceives that the house is not built into the hillside, but stands independently in front of it. The natural stone is both juxtaposed with the artificial structure and integrated into it. In view of the room-height facade glazing on this side, the internal space is visually closed by the rugged rock wall. The design of the house is distinguished by three basic elements: nature in its primal state, the reshaped landscape and finally the architecture itself.

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Architects

House on Lake Starnberg, Germany

Two Semi-Detached Houses in Munich, Germany

Client: private Architects: Fink + Jocher, Munich Assistants: Elfriede Friedrich, Katrin Möller, Peter Scheller Structural engineers: Bernhard Behringer, Munich Date of construction: 2001

Clients: Eva and Theo Peter Architect: Werner Bäuerle, Bäuerle • Lüttin, Constance Assistants: Gunther Braun, Katja Pochert, Biggy Gittel Structural engineers: Ingenieurbüro H. Fischer, Bad Endorf Date of construction: 1997

[email protected] www.fink-jocher.de

[email protected] Thomas Jocher born 1952 in Benediktbeuren; 1980: diploma at the Technical University of Munich; 1984–90: member of the Academic Council at the Institute for Urban Design and Regional Planning at the Technical University of Munich; 1991: doctorate; since 1991: office partnership with Dietrich Fink in Munich; since 1987: professor at the University of Stuttgart; 2004: visiting professor at Tongji University, Shanghai Dietrich Fink born 1958 in Burgau; 1984: diploma at the Technical University of Munich; 1988: member of the Academic Council at the Institute for Urban Design and Regional Planning at the Technical University of Munich; since 1991: office partnership with Thomas Jocher in Munich; 1998: visiting professor at the Technical University of Munich; since 1999: professor at the University of Technology, Berlin

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Werner Bäuerle born 1958 in Furtwangen; 1985: diploma at Constance Technical College; since 1989: own practice; 1992–97: lectureship at Constance Technical College

Summer House with Studio in Vejby, Denmark

House in Nova Scotia, Canada

House near New York, USA

House in Toronto, Canada

Client: Mikael Andersen Architect: Henning Larsens Tegnestue A/S, Copenhagen Assistants: Peer T. Jeppesen, Anders Park, Claus Simonsen Structural engineers: Anders Christensen, Lyngby Date of construction: 1999

Client: Withheld Architect: Brian MacKay-Lyons, Halifax Assistants: Talbot Sweetapple; Chad Jamieson, Melanie Hayne, Geoff Miller Structural engineers: Campbell Comeau Engineering, Halifax Date of construction: 2004

Clients: Darlene and William F. Ross Architects: SR+T Architects, New York/Berlin Karla Maria Sislian Rothstein, Joel E. Towers Assistants: John Amatruda, Salvatore Perry Structural engineers: Dennis Tanczos, Latham, NY Date of construction: 1995–97

Client: Robert G. Hill, Toronto Architects: Shim • Sutcliffe Architects, Toronto Assistant: Donald Chong Structural engineers: Ned Onen, Toronto Date of construction: 1994

[email protected] www.hlt.dk Henning Larsen born 1925; 1950: graduate at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts; 1951–52: AA School of Architecture, London and M.I.T. School of Architecture, Boston; 1968–95: professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen; 1967: professor at the School of Architecture, Trondheim; visiting professorships in Denmark and the United States; numerous prizes and awards

[email protected] www.mlsarchitects.cs Brian MacKay-Lyons born 1954 in Nova Scotia; 1978: Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Nova Scotia, followed by Master of Architecture and Urban Design at U.C.L.A., Los Angeles; 1985: founded Brian MacKay-Lyons Architecture Urban Design, Halifax; professor at Dalhousie University, Halifax; numerous visiting professorships in the United States

[email protected] www.srtarchitects.com Karla Maria Sislian Rothstein born 1966 in W. Virginia; Master of Architecture, Columbia University; 1993: co-founder SR+T; since 1997: Adj. Assist. Professor, Columbia University Joel E. Towers born 1965 in New York; Master of Architecture, Columbia University; 1993: co-founder SR+T; since 2000: Adj. Assist. Professor, Columbia University

[email protected] www.shim-sutcliffe.com Brigitte Shim born 1958 in Kingston, Jamaica; Bachelor of Environmental Studies (1980) and Bachelor of Architecture (1983) at University of Waterloo; visiting professor at Harvard University, University of Oregon, and University of Pennsylvania; since 1988: associate professor at University of Toronto; 1997: founded Shim • Sutcliffe Architects Howard Sutcliffe born 1958 in Mirfield, England; Bachelor of Environmental Studies (1980) and Bachelor of Architecture (1983) at University of Waterloo; 1997: founded Shim • Sutcliffe Architects

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House in Kawasaki, Japan

Weekend House near Tokyo, Japan

Weekend House in Australia

House in Münster, Germany

Client: Kazunari Sakamoto Architect: Kazunari Sakamoto Assistants: Mikiko Terauchi, Makoto Adachi Structural engineers: Kanebako Structural Engineers Date of construction: 1999

Client: private Architects: Office of Ryue Nishizawa, Tokyo Ryue Nishizawa, Kimihiko Okada Structural engineers: Structured Environment, Tokyo Date of construction: 1998

Client: private Architect: Sean Godsell, Melbourne Structural engineers: Felicetti PTY LTD, Melbourne Date of construction: 2001

Client: Gabriele Andreae Architects: Gabriele Andreae (design and execution) with Ulrich Kötter (execution), Münster Assistants: Peter Heumann, Martin Hagspihl Structural engineers: Horz + Ladewig, Cologne Date of construction: 1996

[email protected] www.arch.titech.ac.jp

Ryue Nishizawa born 1966 in Tokyo; 1990: Master of Architecture at Yokohama National University; since 1995: collaboration with Kazuyo Sejima; 1997: founded own practice – Office of Ryue Nishizawa; visiting lecturer at Yokohama National University, Nihon University and Hiroshima Institute of Technology; 2001: assisant professorship at the Yokohama National University

Kazunari Sakamoto born 1943 in Tokyo, Japan; 1966: diploma at the Institute of Technology, Tokyo; 1991: doctorate; lecturer at Musashino Arts University; assistant professorships at Musashino Arts University and the Institute of Technology, Tokyo; since 1991: professor at the Institute of Technology, Tokyo; numerous awards

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[email protected]

[email protected] www.seangodsell.com Sean Godsell born 1960 in Melbourne 1984: graduated from the University of Melbourne; 1994: founded Godsell Associates Pty Ltd Architects; 1999: Master of Architecture at RMIT University in Melbourne; visiting lecturer at the University of Melbourne and at the RMIT University; numerous awards

Gabriele Andreae born 1951 in Cologne; 1978: diploma at University of Technology, Darmstadt; 1980-81: assistant at Univiversity of Technology, Darmstadt Ulrich Kötter born 1955 in Bielefeld; 1985: diploma at Technical College Münster; 1990: founded own architectural practice; 1991–97: lecturer at Technical College Münster

House in Hernals, Vienna, Austria

House in Almelo, Netherlands

House in Osaka, Japan

House in Tokyo, Japan

Client: private Architects: Henke und Schreieck Architekten, Vienna Marta Schreieck Dieter Henke Assistant: Rudolf Seidl Structural engineers: Gmeiner und Haferl, Vienna Date of construction: 1997

Clients: A.T.M. van der Meulen family Architect: Dirk Jan Postel, Kraaijvanger • Urbis, Bureau voor architectuur en stads-ontwerp, Rotterdam Assistant: Nick Marks Structural engineers: ABT, Velp Date of construction: 1997

Clients: Nomi family Architects: Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Osaka Tadao Ando, Takaaki Mizutani, Saiko Kosugi Structural engineers: Ascoral Engineering Associates, Osaka Date of construction: 1996

Client: private Architects: Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects, Tokyo Assistants: Takeo Higashi, Kaori Shikichi Structural engineers: Structural Design Office Oak, Tokyo Date of construction: 1999

[email protected] www.kraaijvangerurbis.nl

[email protected] www.andotadao.org

[email protected]

Dirk Jan Postel born 1957; 1986: diploma at University of Technology, Delft; since 1992: partner of Kraaijvanger • Urbis, Office for Architecture and Urban Planning

Tadao Ando born 1941 in Osaka; 1962–69: autodidactic architectural training; 1969: founded architectural practice Tadao Ando Architect & Associates; visiting professor at Yale University (1987), at Columbia University (1988) and at Harvard University (1990); since 1997: professor at Tokyo University; numerous prizes, honorary professorships and awards, including the Pritzker Prize for Architecture (1995)

[email protected] Marta Schreieck born 1954 in Innsbruck; 1981: diploma at Academy of Visual Arts, Vienna; 1993: lecturer at University of Innsbruck; 1995: visiting professor at Academy of Visual Arts, Vienna; 2004: Commissioner at the 9th Biennial of Architecture, Venice; 2005: Member of the Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin Dieter Henke born 1952 in Kössen; 1980: diploma at Academy of Visual Arts, Vienna; 1981–82: assistant at Institute for Urban Planning in Academy of Visual Arts, Vienna

Toyo Ito born 1941; 1965: diploma at Tokyo University; 1971: founded own architectural practice – Urban Robot; since 1979: Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects; 1991: visiting professor at Columbia University, New York; honorary professor at University of North London; numerous prizes and awards

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House near Lugano, Switzerland

House in Li Curt, Switzerland

House in Munich, Germany

House in Erfurt, Germany

Clients: Daniela and Maurizio di Paola Architects: Giraudi Wettstein Architekten, Lugano Sandra Giraudi, Felix Wettstein Assistant: Monica Delmenico Structural engineers: Grignoli + Muttoni, Lugano Date of construction: 1997

Client: Sandra and Moreno Raselli-Kalt Architect: Conradin Clavuot, Chur Assistants: Norbert Mathis, Flurin Camenisch, Claudia Clavuot-Merz Bauleitung: Andrea Vassella Structural engineers: Edy Toscano AG, Marco Passini, Poschiavo Date of construction: 2002

Clients: Norbert and Klaus Weigl Architects: Thomas M. Hammer and Doris Schmid-Hammer, Munich Assistants: Timo Jeskanen, Manfred Weihermann Structural engineers: Behringer + Müller, Munich Date of construction: 1997

Clients: Cornelia and Michael John Architect: Silvia Britz, Erfurt Structural engineers: Staupendahl & Partner, Weimar Date of construction: 1999

[email protected] www.architekten-bsa.ch Sandra Giraudi born 1962 in Vevey; 1989: diploma at ETH Zurich; 1989–90 and 1992–96: assistant at ETH Zurich; since 1992: own practice; 1995: founded architectural practice Giraudi Wettstein Architekten with Felix Wettstein Felix Wettstein born 1962 in Zurich; 1988: diploma at ETH Zurich; 1992–95: collaboration with Andreas Stöcklin; 1990–96: assistant at ETH Zurich; 1997: lecturer at ETH Zurich; since 1995: joint architectural practice with Sandra Giraudi

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[email protected] Conradin Clavuot Born 1962 in Davos; 1988: diploma a the ETH Zurich; 1988: founded own practice; guest lecturer at the ETH Zurich

[email protected] Doris Schmid-Hammer born 1959 in Munich; 1984: diploma at the Technical University of Munich; 1987: higher state examinations; various teaching appointments Thomas M. Hammer born 1955 in Werneck; 1984: diploma at the Technical University of Munich; 1985: founded own architectural practice; 1985–88: assistant at Academy of Visual Arts, Munich; 1989–92: assistant at the Technical University of Munich; various teaching appointments

[email protected] www.britz-architekten.de Silvia Britz born 1965 in Meiningen; 1990: diploma at HAB (today, Bauhaus University), Weimar; since 1998: own architectural practice

House in Italy

House in Berlin, Germany

House in Moledo, Portugal

Client: private Architect: Döring Dahmen Joeressen, Düsseldorf Wolfgang Döring, Michael Dahmen, ElmarJoeressen Structural engineers: Giorgio Marziali Acquapendente Prov. Viterbo Date of construction: 1997

Client: private Architect: David Chipperfield Architects, London/Berlin Structural engineers: Rene Becker, Gotthard Gonsior Building systems: Hans Jürgen Fitz Date of construction: 1997

Client: António Reis Architect: Eduardo Souto de Moura, Oporto Assistants: Manuela Lara, Pedro Reis, Nuno Rodrigues Pereira Structural engineers: José Adriano Cardoso Date of construction: 1998 [email protected]

[email protected] www.ddj.de Wolfgang Döring born 1934 in Berlin/Dahlen; diploma at Technical University of Karlsruhe; 1964: founded own practice; since 1973: professor at the RWTH, Aachen; 1992: visiting professor at Tokyo University; 1996: co-founder of Döring Dahmen Joeressen Architects Michael Dahmen born 1962 in Aachen; studies at the Technical University, Berlin; 1991: diploma at the RWTH, Aachen; 1996: co-founder of Döring Dahmen Joeressen Architects

[email protected] www.davidchipperfield.co.uk David Chipperfield born 1953 in London; 1977: diploma; 1984: founded David Chipperfield Architects; 1998: founded office in Berlin; currently: visiting professor at the University of Arts, London; numerous visiting professorships in the United States, Austria, Italy, England, Germany and Switzerland; various awards, among others the Tessenow Gold Medal in 1999

Eduardo Souto de Moura born 1952 in Oporto; 1980: diploma at ESBAP in Oporto; 1980: founded own architectural practice; visiting professor at Paris-Belleville, Harvard, Dublin, Zurich and Lausanne

Elmar Joeressen born 1963 in Mönchengladbach; 1990: diploma at the RWTH, Aachen; 1996: co-founder of Döring Dahmen Joeressen Architects

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Authors Christian Schittich (editor) Born 1956 Studied architecture at the Technical University of Munich, followed by seven years‘ office experience and work as author and publicist, from 1991: member of editorial team of DETAIL, Review of Architecture, from 1992: co-editor, since 1998: editor-in-chief; author and editor of numerous books and journal contributions on architecture

Rüdiger Krisch Born 1966 Studied architecture and urban planning at Stuttgart University and Columbia University, New York, 1993–98: assistant in offices in New York and Munich, 1998–2003: scientific assistant at the Institute of Housing and Design, Stuttgart University, since 1998: architect and urban planner in Tübingen, 2005–2006: lectureship at Stuttgart University, since 1991: writer and journalist

Gert Kähler Born 1942 Studied architecture at the Technical University of Berlin, followed by seven years‘ office practice; assistant at Hanover University, 1981: doctorate, 1985: professorship, visiting professor and lecturer at various universities, since 1988: freelance journalist and scientist, numerous publications on 20th-century architecture

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Herzog, T./Krippner, R./Lang, W., Facade Construction Manual, Munich/Basle 2004

Ulrike Brandi LICHT, DETAIL Praxis: Tageslicht Kunstlich, Munich 2005

Hugues, T./Greilich, K./ Peter, C., DETAIL Practice: Building with Large Clay Blocks, Munich/Basle 2004 Hugues, T./Steiger, L./ Weber, J., DETAIL Practice: Timber Construction, Munich/Basel 2004

Rössler, Hannes (ed.), Minihäuser Japan, Salzburg 2002

Hugues, T./Steiger, L./ Weber, J., DETAIL Practice: Dressed Stone, Munich/Basle 2005

Sack, Manfred/Hintze, Bettina, Die besten Einfamilienhäuser, Munich 2005

Jackson, Neil, The Modern Steel House, London 1996

Salazar, Jaime/Gausa, Manuel, Single-Family Housing: The Private Domain, Basle/Boston/Berlin 2005

Kind-Barkauskas, F./Kauhsen,B./ Polónyi, S./Brandt, J., Concrete Construction Manual, Munich/Basle 2002

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Picture credits The authors and editor wish to extend their sincere thanks to all those who helped to realise this book by making illustrations available, by granting permission to reproduce graphic material or by providing valuable information. All drawings contained in this volume have been specially prepared inhouse. Photos without credits are from the architects’ own archives or the archives of “DETAIL, Review of Architecture”. Despite intense efforts, it was not possible to identify the copyright owners of certain photos and illustrations. Their rights remains unaffected, however, and we request them to contact us.

From photographers, photo archives and picture agencies: • Ambroz, Miroslav, Brno: 3.6 • Architectural Association/Yerbury, F.R.: 3.15 • Awad, Michael, ARCH/PHOTO, Toronto: pp. 78, 81, 83 • Bäuerle, Werner, Konstanz: p. 57 • Blunck, Reiner, Tübingen: 2.5, 2.7, 3.1 • Bracht, Gabriele, Münster: p. 109 top • Buckminster Fuller Archiv, Sebastopol Ca.: 3.24, 3.25 • Carter, Earl, St. Kilda: pp. 99 –103 • Clavuot, Conradin, Chur: p. 148 • Döring Dahmen Jöressen, Düsseldorf: p. 166 • Dow, James, Edmonton: p. 82 • Evans, Steven, Toronto: pp. 66–69, 71,79 • Feiner, Ralph, Malans: pp.141–145, 147, 149–151 • Ferreira Alves, Luis, Porto: pp. 179–183 • Giraudi + Wettstein, Lugano: p. 140 • Hedrich-Blessing, HB –19312–A, Courtesy of Chicago Historical Society: 3.4 • Heinrich, Michael, Munich: 2.13 • Henke + Schreieck, Vienna: p. 117 • Hielscher, Volker, Klettbach/Erfurt: pp. 160 –165 • Hill, Robert G., Toronto: p. 80 • Hirai, Hiroyuki, Tokyo: 2.9 • Homma, Takashi, Tokyo: pp. 90 –91 • Jocher, Thomas, Munich: 2.4

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• Kanebako, Yoshiharu, Tokyo: p. 89 • Kinold, Klaus, Munich: 3.16, 3.28 • Koepke, Henning, Munich: pp. 152–156, 158–159 • Lindhe, Jens, Copenhagen: pp. 60–65 • Madlener, Thomas, Munich: 3.20 • Meisen, Manos, Düsseldorf: pp. 167–168, 170–171 • Müller, Stefan, Berlin: pp. 173 –174, 175 top, 176 –177 • Müller-Naumann, Stefan, Munich: pp. 53–55, 58–59 • Ohashi, Tomio, Tokyo: pp. 85, 88 top • Oudsten, Frank den, Amsterdam: 3.7, 3.10 • Richters, Christian, Münster: pp. 105–107, 109 bottom, 110, 121–127, 172, 175 bottom • Rocheleau, Paul, Richmond: 3.21 • Rosenberg, Simone, Munich: 1.2, pp. 45–51 • Rothstein + Towers, New York: pp. 72–77 • Schenkirz, Richard, Regensburg: 2.11 • Schittich, Christian, Munich: 1.1, p. 157 • Shinkenchiku-Sha, Tokyo: pp. 86–87, 88 middle + bottom, 93–97, 128–133, 135–139 • Spiluttini, Margherita, Vienna: 3.27, pp. 113–115, 118–119 • Stecha, Pavel, Cernosice: 3.18 • Träskelin, Rauno, Helsinki: 3.23 • VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn: 3.3, 3.5–3.6, 3.11–3.14, 3.17–3.19, 3.21–3.22 • Zanetta, Alo, Vacallo: 3.28

From books and journals: • Aicher, Otl, Die Küche zum Kochen, Berlin 1994, p. 13: 2.2 • Blaser, Werner, Mies van der Rohe, Basel 1997, p. 51: 2.12 • Co, Francesco dal, Tadao Ando, Complete Works, London: 3.26 • Latham, I., Joseph Maria Olbrich, Stuttgart 1981, p. 112: 3.2 Introductory b/w photos of articles and sections: • p. 8; Traditional House in Takayama, Gifu-Prefecture, Japan • p. 12; House in Berlin; Becher + Rottkamp Architekten, Berlin • p. 29; House in Yirrkala, Australia; Glenn Murcutt, Sidney

Dust-jacket photo: House on Lake Starnberg, Germany Architects: Fink + Jocher Architekten, Munich Photo: Simone Rosenberg, Munich