This development stands beside the Schiller Park1, designed by Bruno Taut2, in Wedding3. In the manner of the brick buildings of the 1920s, the form the architects chose for the building was an outer layer of brickwork concealed beneath a thin layer of render. In the design, too, the plan is guided towards the architecture of the Modern Movement.
To the south, the U-shaped plan of the perimeter buildings follows the curve of the road and shapes a layout that gives the project a particular identity. In addition, there is a special element at the corners of the building: on the ground floor the space has been used to create wide passages leading from the street to the shared courtyard.
In all, the development comprises 73 rental apartments, a residential facility for the elderly and a café. The layouts are based on a nested grid devised by the architects, subdivided along the longitudinal axes at half its dimension. This has made every kind of spatial division and every size of home possible.
As a result, it became possible to create units with different plans, consisting of one to four rooms and with areas of between 40 and 120 square metres. The living rooms and kitchens can therefore be open-plan or separate from each other.
The facade is consistent with the internal flexibility, with rows of evenly spaced windows, each consisting of two openings of different sizes within a single element, which discreetly join up the windows of the stairs. The loggias overlooking the courtyard are also brought into line with the fixed grid of the facade by their integral balustrades.
The external walls, with a single skin of brick, consist of lightweight, insulated vertically perforated blocks. For the walls between the homes, vertically perforated blocks of dense gypsum were used to provide greater sound insulation. The cores are filled with cement.
Other parts of the building with greater structural demands are built of reinforced concrete with a brick skin.
Detail 2017, 10.
Notes
1- Schiller Park
2- Bruno Taut
3- Wedding
