Titus Bernhard

Description

Set in a suburban community of Augsburg, this house was built in the face of considerable resistance from municipal building authorities and the immediate neighborhood. The two-storied residence was conceived as an inhabitable sculpture for a couple, and as a statement against banal local design statutes incapable of advancing architectural culture. Such an obstacle-strewn path is symptomatic of the (non)acceptance of novel, innovative architecture in portions of this country. On a quadratic site measuring 9x9 meters, the plan developed into a 2-storied open sequence of rooms, with a living, dining, and kitchen area on the on the ground floor, a work gallery and sleeping, dressing and bathrooms in the 1st story, and a reading gallery below the asymmetrical pyramidal roof.The finely executed, pale plastered, bright interior conception contrasts with the rough exterior shell. All dimensions of this small house (width, depth, height) are perceptible via view axes, producing a spacious, airy feel. The building joins reduced aesthetic claims with an ecological concept: for the first time, a so-called gabion facade was suspended from the insulated and sealed shell as a non-load-bearing structure. The house ́s entire shell was executed beneath the cages as a hydrophilic layer without rain gutters, rainwater pipes. etc. 365 hand-filled cages with ca. 40 000 stones constitutes 28 ton storage mass that regulates thermal transfer, in both summer and in wintertime, it provides a cozy environment involving minimal heating requirements. Up to 70% of the cost of the facade was sponsored by participating firms.