Reports: Variable Double Facade of Glass and Aluminium Louvers
- Julia Liese
Depending on the type and angle of light present, as well as the position of the louvers, this gabled facade cloaking an addition to a home makes widely divergent impressions. This facade constitutes the spatial definition of the addition to a housing community model dating to the 1940s in Laim, a quarter in Munich. Sensitive to the neighbourhood’s character, the architects solved the task by extruding the existing building massing, i.e. the addition is situated in front of the existing residence and mimics its cross-section. On the ground floor a large opening in the wall connects the new living room to the existing house. Upstairs the extra space brings forth a new bedroom. On the exterior, the clear formal vocabulary and materiality of the addition distinguishes it clearly from the other brick and stucco surfaces. There is a seamless transition between the roof and wall surfaces, and together they form a homogeneous building envelope of dark grey fibre-cement board. The translucent gabled facade is a marked contrast: the exterior wall is to a large degree glazed, and is fronted by a framework of horizontal aluminium tubing. This outermost layer serves as glare and solar protection and gives the facade a sense of depth. Parts of this structural frame are operable: a window-sized panel on the upper storey opens by means of a sliding-folding mechanism, and the three sliding elements on the ground floor can be stored in the facade’s interstitial space.
