trans_city / Christian Aulinger / Mark Gilbert

Description

Organized around a central green, the «Schichtgründe» urban development zone will provide housing for some two thousand people. The SAT housing complex forms the northern end of this project. It consists of two U-shaped volumes turned towards each other, each surrounding a quiet residential courtyard. The volumes take up the orthogonal structure of the buildings to the south and, through the rotation of the wings, create a transition to the diagonal line of the Satzingerweg road in the north. North of Satzingerweg lies a densely wooded area.

The emphatically sculptural quality of the complex results from the interplay between the slender building volumes and the massive balconies. The articulation of the duplex apartments generates striking vertical accents that set a lively counterpoint to the horizontally aligned balconies. The projection of the balconies is particularly pronounced at the corners of the buildings; there, their forceful line is counterpoised by elongated, precast concrete planters. The balconies consist of monolithic precast concrete elements made of white cement with a sandblasted surface. The same material is used for the cladding of the arcades, but here it is applied in a dramatically different way: The ostinato rhythm of the cantilevered balconies stands in deliberate contrast to the lightfooted composition of the arcades’ planar cladding.