Pool Leber Architekten und Stadtplaner

Description

Like a crystalline monolith with an expansive footprint, House LOS is made entirely from concrete inside and out. Thanks to the use of infra-lightweight concrete for both the walls and the roof, no insulation is required. The shape of the folded roof is derived from the surrounding hipped-roof houses from the 1930s combined with the rhombus shape of the floor plan. Integrating the garage, the roof landscape forms an overall sculpture made up of amorphously cut, partially sunken surfaces. The basic design motif of the diamond is echoed everywhere: in the gallery, in the herringbone parquet floors, in the Spanish cement tiles and in the pattern left by the formwork in the walls of the stairwell. The functional areas are arranged radially around the diamond-shaped staircase, starting on the north-east side of the ground floor with utility rooms, kitchen and au pair apartment, and ending with the living and dining area to the south-west. Central access to the other floors is organised vertically in dialogue with decentralised staircases that connect the spa area in the basement with its sauna, steam bath and pool to the garden via an atrium and afford direct street access to the office rooms on the upper floor. The parents’ wing, children’s area and offices spiral their way upward step by step, allowing for an additional 50 centimetres of ceiling height in the living room and hallway on the ground floor as well as in the parents’ and office area on the upper floor. This play with form, material, rotation, centrality and decentrality shapes the total spatial experience of the building.