Hardstrasse

The project is a proposal to transform a plot currently used for commercial purposes to an urban living program. The other commercial establishments of the neighborhood will be gradually dismantled in favor of urban housing, offering the attractive possibility of recovering the generous civic parks and gardens that originally ran along the St. Alban-Anlage.

The aim of the study is to develop different housing typologies and sizes within one building. The concentration of all the apartments in a single building along the road maximizes not only the area of the garden/park behind, but also the distance to neighboring buildings. At the same time, this scheme can provide each apartment with dramatically different views on each side: the city to one side and the park to the other.

A grid configuration with fixed programmatic zones allowed to organize a variety of housing types and sizes within the building. By arraying each apartment’s programs and spaces horizontally along the grid and on occasion, vertically in multi-story units, the apartments gain additional qualities such as double-height spaces and two-sided orientations - regardless of their size. A series of light wells provides the deepest areas of the building with natural light.

The staggering of the floorplates maximizes the connection between the apartments and the park, creating generous outdoor terrace space for each unit and making the green, vegetated outdoors an integral part of each apartment. On the upper floors, the light wells widen into yet another type of urban outdoor space – sunken courtyards. The combination of terraces, loggias and the park offers a wide range of qualities for different exterior spaces – from spaces for private retreat to semi-public green spaces.

Adding to the permeability of the building, the entrance foyer at the ground level runs through the entire depth of the building, giving passery-by on the city side a visual, if not physical connection to the park beyond.