HAUS WP 15

single-family house – Hamburg, 2019

In collaboration with MAHLAU² BAUKUNST DRINNEN & DRAUSSEN (interior design)

Single-family houses have always been classic fields of experimentation for architects in order to sound out room ideas that are not possible in other locations. The Villa WP15 plays with a spectacular interior, which circles around a chimney core from the basement of the hillside building to the highest point of the roof. The spatial continuum reaches a height of 12 m from the lowest to the highest point. A straight, multi-storey staircase and two short bridges structure this dramatic space. Two large, opposite windows in the upper floor hall open once to the east and west and let the morning and evening light fall deep into the room. An clerestory fills the complex cut airspace with changing plays of light and shadow.

Facing the street and the entrance gate, the house hardly reveals anything of its inner magic: a simple white body with a sloping roof sits on a black plinth made of Colomba bricks, as if it wanted to float or take off at any time. The house is very carefully embedded in the hillside property and contradicts the instinct for self-expression that is so often encountered on the Elbe slope. Only on the south side towards the garden and the Elbe - almost completely hidden from views - the house allows a large opening of the living area over the entire width of the house. The modest and yet crowning conclusion to the interior is the client's workroom high up under the roof ridge with a wide view of the Elbe. The building project, which is widely discussed in official and political circles, fits into the Elbhang neighborhood thanks to its unique roof geometry.