when viewed from the outside, the Haus mit drei Treppenhäusern (literally ‘house with three stairs’) by Kraus Schönberg Architekten in Hamburg intrigues with its atypical volume. The three reinforced concrete cubes that make it up do actually appear to be suspended in midair, supported by a series of partitions that can be seen through the large glass fronts. The key to the enigma is found in the floor plan (as well as in the name of the work itself): the volumes of the house rest on independent stairways, three nuclei that, with the addition of a few partitions, form the load-bearing system of the building. This complex volumetric trick could be dismissed as a futile affectation. And yet, it is a response to the needs of the clients, a family in search of a home that could guarantee relative autonomy to its different members.

La entrada Detached House se publicó primero en Global Spaces.

This timber house is about different ways of perceiving the landscape surrounding it. There are two principal floors; one set 750mm below the earth, one 1500mm above. The ground floor consists of one single family room with a noticeably low horizontal ceiling. In this space there is a physical connection with the nature outside the continuous windows. The space above is the inverse. This floor is divided into four equal rooms with 6m high ceilings. The height defines the space. Large windows open to composed views of the wheat field. Whereas the ground floor is about connecting with the visceral nature of the context, the floor above is about observing nature – a more distant and cerebral activity.

Text description provided by the architects.

La entrada House in Balsthal se publicó primero en Global Spaces.