Pool Leber Architekten und Stadtplaner
House LOS
best architects 22
single family homes
Place
Gräfelfing, Germany
Studio
Photos
Brigida González
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.