For generations, flowers were sold at the intersection of Wiesenstrasse and Schorenstrasse. Now, two greenhouses in the garden still recall the former use and local history. The all-wood-built gallery house extends along Wiesenstrasse, accommodating 25 rental apartments. The 2.5 to 5.5 room apartments are accessed via a continuous balcony with a private outdoor curtain buffer zone for each unit. This gallery access to the apartments promotes social interaction.

In keeping with the timber construction, the floor plan of the gallery house is characterized by a clear and pragmatic spatial structure: a direct entrance into the living and dining area, a central zone with a shower and storage space, and rooms oriented towards the garden.

The layered walls and ceilings easily meet the requirements for sound insulation, fire protection, and installation routing. Load-bearing facades and longitudinal walls handle the load transfer. The central space, arranged in the middle, acts as the core of the apartment, connecting all rooms. The modular floor plan organization allows for the creation of apartments of various sizes. Each apartment has a spacious veranda with positive effects on the activation (social security) of the outdoor spaces. The timber architecture forms the expressive yet calm framework, thereby conveying a touch of refinement and confident presence. The materials are used raw and without refinement, radiating the privilege of authenticity.

La entrada Laubenhaus Apartments se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

In a small village in southern Italy, a modest house stood unused – two vaulted rooms with thick walls and a street-facing façade protected by local heritage rules. Natural light entered only from this southern front, which faced directly onto the street and the harsh summer sun. With no possibility for cross-ventilation and strict regulations prohibiting new openings, the interior was dark and uninhabitable. Rather than extending upward, the project begins by turning inward.

Thanks to a special permission from the urban planning office, one of the original vaults was dismantled and instead, a patio emerged: an open-air void defined by a curved wall, evoking the image of a rotated vault. The curved patio reaches outward to a broader architectural language, referencing the rounded forms of Puglia’s vernacular structures – torrette, trulli and dry-stone enclosures.

La entrada Casa Verri se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Located north of Berlin, the Uckermark region is renowned for its natural beauty and eco-friendly farms, which supply high-quality products to the Berlin area. Recently, it has also become a retreat for artists and creatives seeking an escape from the busy city. This project began with the planned restructuring of a small farm, where each building is set to be restored in stages. The existing family house, the only non-original building, was built atop an ancient ruin and followed a cost-effective construction standard before being demolished. AAS carefully removed the modern layers, preserving only the historic remnants of the walls. Thick concrete walls were then poured over these fragments to form a new structure. One large opening was created on each facade, offering a distinctive sense of scale and transforming the house’s appearance. The windows, which also function as doors, are strategically placed to maximise natural light in every room. Inside, the layout is open and fluid, with no interior doors. The space features a spacious living area with an open kitchen, and a staircase leading to two bedrooms.

Text provided by the architects.

La entrada The 4-window House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

On the plot where the Social Housing were built, primarily intended for the elderly, there was a building that we were obliged to demolish due to its non-compliance with urban planning regulations and its poor condition—there was no possibility of preserving it. It was a small, disused three-story school constructed with structural sandstone (marès) walls and concrete and ceramic ceilings. The project’s distinctive strategy was the utilization of demolition materials from the old school as resources to construct the new building, practicing what we might call urban mining: where material resources come from the urban plot itself, resulting from the demolition of the pre-existing building.

Once the demolition was completed and materials were selected, nearly all the rubble was repurposed according to material type. First, pieces of ceramic and concrete elements (140 m³) were poured into the foundation pits and walls of the semi-basement. Second, all the sandstone (about 160 m³) was used to construct large blocks (approximately 3,000 units) of cyclopean concrete with cement and lime mixed with recycled marès stone (40% of the block volume), composed of large cobbles up to 30 cm in diameter, sandstone gravel, and picadís (sand, also from marès). Each block was cut with a large disc saw from a 4 x 4 m2 slab, so that the stones reappeared on the faces of the blocks.

La entrada Social Housing 2104 se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The house is built in a transition area between the urban fabric of the town and the valley to the south. The walls and the stone pathways delimiting the plots of land contribute to the strong impact made by the landscape.

The lowest elevation at the base of the elongated triangular plot has the largest available area for construction.

This broader parcel of land enables a classical-type plan to be laid out (an L-shaped layout), siting the house at the low elevation, on a single floor. Its perimeter is outlined so as to provide the interior space with natural light and turn the L-shaped façades of the bedroom and lounge areas to the south respectively.

This siting and topographic relationship frees the land’s upper elevation completely, which extends over the roof onto a continuous garden.

La entrada Santo Tirso se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

The project proposes the rehabilitation of an agricultural warehouse, reprogrammed as a “senior” cohabitation. In order to accommodate two family units in the same building, the lifestyle of each individual family was studied. This allowed us to plan and reorganize the spaces according to each use, specific to the degree of collectivization required at each moment. Individual, couple, collective and even neighborhood spaces were incorporated.

In order to solve the scale transition from warehouse to cohousing, the multiplicity of use spaces, and the gradients of privacy, the project proposes the insertion of a central equipped block. This new element permits the reconfiguration of the pre-existing open space into multiple subspaces, which are distributed both in plan and in section.

La entrada Conversion of a agricultural warehouse to senior cohousing se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Böhmisch Rixdorf in central Berlin Neukölln is a relic timber frame village, founded by bohemian protestant refugees in 1737. It is still surprisingly intact, both architecturally and socio-economically. Many descendants of the inital settlers are still living in the former farm buildings, now surrounded by high density urban Neukölln.

Das Rote Haus sits at the south end of the village, just where it meets the dense parts of the city. The tiny triangular plot of 225m² is framed by the city wall, separating böhmisch and deutsch Rixdorf, and a five floor Berlin Mietskaserne. It has a long history of light industrial uses. Ten years ago, when the refurbishment startet, it was a fully sealed roofmakers workshop.

La entrada Das Rote Haus se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Toronjos is a vacation home designed to harmonize with its natural surroundings. From its inception, the project prioritized a minimal footprint and a fully sustainable design.

The house is a sanctuary that fosters a connection with nature. A series of staggered walls and large openings along the perimeter provide protection and enclosure, while simultaneously allowing the landscape to flow through the architecture. This strategy promotes not only ventilation and natural light, but also a continuous and intimate connection with the outdoors.

More than just a piece of architecture, the house becomes a space for contemplation and serenity, where nature takes center stage. Every corner frames and celebrates the surrounding views, especially those of the lake. This body of water not only enriches the landscape visually, but also serves an environmental function by collecting rainwater and regenerating the site’s ecosystem, reinforcing the project’s sustainable character.

La entrada Toronjos se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Moving to a house, having contact with the land, enjoying plenty of natural light and ventilation, and being able to accommodate future transformations in life. The Casa da Travessa was born from these requests, which reflect both the period of isolation caused by the pandemic and the deep-rooted desires of its inhabitants.

The response we gave to this project came from balancing these desires with what we believe architecture to be at this moment (2023-24). We sought to design a house that breathes, both through its interior/exterior relationship and the use of materials.

The basic concept of the project was to insert new wooden elements – structural and sealing – into the internal and external spaces of the house. Where there were new openings, they would be marked with translucent elements.

La entrada Casa da Travessa se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

Volumetry serving the urban project
This parallelogram-shaped lot necessitated the present building with its sharp angle. The location and volumetry of the project seek to soften this angularity by playing with inflection. Along the Rue Gerda Taro, this new building front is intersected by porches atop which winter gardens are placed, allowing light to penetrate from the south and offer views over the green heart of the neighborhood from the street.

The comfort of everyday uses
Occupants enter the building through a porch opening onto a landscaped area offering a perspective deep into the parcel and all the way to the public garden. Circulation inside the building is facilitated by natural light on the façade at the level of the stairs, separated from landings by a glass door. The flats, ranging from 1 to 5 rooms, have been designed to meet different needs and the outdoor extensions vary: loggias, balconies and private terraces. The largest flats enjoy double exposure as they are situated at the angles of the building.

Blended construction methods
Lifecycle and environmental performance guide the construction methods implemented on the project, as evidenced in the elementary association of wooden strips and a concrete post and slab structure. This approach creates open plans that allow for future interior adaptations as needed.

Text provided by the architects.

La entrada 36 social flats se publicó primero en Global Spaces.