Baur & Latsch Architekten Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mbB

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.