Berlin_Marchlewskistrasse 36

Faculty of Architecture and Design STU in Bratislava

Project idea

Current situation
We are in the farther center of Berlin, in the former eastern bloc, close to well-known Karl-Marx Alle.
The site is located in a part of a city with quite densely built apartment buildings with average height of 5 floors. Houses are mostly built in the after-war period.
When we look at the site from a bird perspective, all we can see is a thick layer of trees. From the street is seen only a high brick wall running around the whole area, but in reality, there are currently three existing objects on the site. The main object is a building of a former car service which currently serves as a studio for a sculptor and an architect. Adjusted from the right side to this building is a small shelter. The former car service is the only “living” building on our site. The other two buildings are being used as storage places, but they are not in an appropriate state for use.

Goal
In today’s Berlin is very actual the “Housing question“. As there is fast growth of population, there is also needed enough space for living. At the same time, we are located in an area where housing is the major function. Therefore, it was natural to focus on a topic of housing in our site.
This project is mostly focusing on a design of polyfunctional apartment building, but with the added value of the reconstruction and partly adjustment of the former car service building, where the function of an artistic studio stays, as those are the investors of the project.

Idea
When you step to the site today, the very first thing you notice is the amount of greenery in and around the site. The atmosphere resembles “secret garden“ hidden behind a brick wall. It’s somewhat abandoned, but beautiful space, where person forgets he is still in the center of Berlin.
This atmosphere is something, what I wanted to conserve as much as possible and inspire the whole design of the apartment building by it.

Project description

The Design
In my design I was trying to minimize the footprint of the house, to preserve as much of the garden as possible. A line of trees is growing on the street right next to our site and the treetops are growing inside our site. That’s the reason am creating an offset on the northern part of the site. The main entrance is therefore located in this space, also as an entrance to the studio and an emergency exit from the underground parking. To this northern part is situated the exterior staircase and an elevator to the apartment building. The apartment building is designed as a terrace apartment building, where the terraces are oriented to the south and therefore, they are also used as balconies, entrance space to the apartments and as a common social space for the inhabitants of the house, This aspect of the design is giving us another added value of the building – the social value. The private part of the balconies/entrances is divided optically using different floor for the private and the public part of the balcony, and by placing the steel rope which holds the balconies between every neighbor.
The apartments are designed the way, that there is a mixture of apartments and therefore a mixture of inhabitants. The dispositions are created, so every apartment has the view to the street and most importantly to the garden as well.

Part of the design is also a reconstruction and an adjustment of the artistic studio. Thanks to the newly built part of the studio, we could get better functional division of the site. In the northern part are situated all the entrances as well as an entrance to the studio. The rest of the garden is separated by the studio building and therefore is only used by the owners (sculptor and an architect). There is also the possibility to use the garden from the shop/café in the first floor of the building. This also gives us the possibility to connect the artistic studio/garden with the café(?) in the Parter and therefore with the street as well and create somehow a gallery with the works of the owners.
The inhabitants of the house primarily don’t have the permission to use the garden, but thanks to the balconies are in close contact with it and therefore feel its’ atmosphere.
Although, people living in the house have the possibility to use the roof of the studio as a common terrace/garden.

In my design I am also leaving part of the brick wall which surrounds the site. This helps conserve the “secret garden“ atmosphere of our site. Eventhough, most of the site is hidden, I am working with perforation of the wall in different parts which opens the garden to the exterior and gives the pedestrian only a minimal chance (but still a chance) to peek inside.

Technical information

By placing the staircase to the exterior and using a skeletal system, the individual apartments are free in the floor plan and therefore flexible to design in the interior.
All the surrounding buildings are characteristic by the strict raster of windows on the façade facing the street, chambranle around the windows, piano nobile, and highlighting of the Parter by different material. The finishing material on most of the neighboring houses
is plaster.
The design of the street façade of the apartment building was inspired by the surrounding buildings. Windows facing the street are placed in the strict raster which comes from the raster on the neighboring buildings. The chambranle around the windows are created by “pushing the mass“ deeper than the face of the façade by few centimeters. The chambranles optically highlight and change the shape of the windows.
The first floor (Parter) is higher than the other floors - piano nobile. The finishing material of the whole building is white plaster, but in the height of Parter it is designed as brushed plaster, while the rest is structured plaster.
Windows in the first floor are higher as the rest of the windows, which gives modern look to the piano nobile, plus we are achieving fully functional urban Parter.
On the northern corner are designed corner windows, thanks to which the inhabitants can get panoramic view to the street. The western façade had to be designed as blind, because of the possibility for a new building to be built next to ours in the future, defined in the regulations.
The southwest façade of the house is meant to be connected to the garden as much as possible, therefore it is designed as “full-glassed“. Thanks to having big windows facing the garden, also a pedestrian on the street can feel the atmosphere of the garden. The balconies are also working as shading of the southwest windows.

Co-authors

school mentor: Ing. arch. Martin Kusý

Documentation

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