Baur & Latsch Architekten Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mbB
Living by the Verna-Park
best architects 21
multi-family homes
Place
Rüsselsheim am Main, Germany
Studio
Photos
Sebastian Schels
Description
Within
the scope of an inner-city redensification, a development of seven houses with
50 apartments was created near the Verna Park in Rüsselsheim. In terms of size and
materiality, the buildings are based on the existing small-scale structures of
the neighbourhood and form the new end of a porous city block. Closed brick façades with a light-coloured mortar
wash characterise the densely packed structure. With its projecting wooden
balconies, the buildings open up extensively to the south. The brick façades draw on the surfaces of apartment buildings, walls and old
industrial buildings (of the former Opel plant) in the surrounding area. The
neighbourhood between the railway tracks and the Verna-Park is characterised by
small detached houses that were built for Opel employees around 1900 in a dense
structure of small city blocks. These buildings are still in existence, some in
unrendered brick. On the courtyard side, the stable and barn buildings of these
homesteads and their wooden gates and galleries were the inspiration for the
wooden construction of the balconies on the south side. The historic regional
bricks are defined by their pale, partially green hue but are no longer
available. In order to integrate the façades into this environment,
coal-stoked red brick was therefore finished with a light, cured slurry. The
custom-made bricks were broken into clinker tiles by hand and laid with mortar.