The ten maisonette apartments on the ground and first floor are a further novelty in the district. These are true “townhouses” with their own front doors and their own private staircases, which even extend down into the basement. The openness of the interiors achieved by the architects represents a great transformation from the compartmentalised layout so typical for Plattenbauten. The ground floor now generally consists of a single generous living room, which has been extended to the south by adding a bay to the facade. The same protrusions have been repeated on the upper storeys; however, the layouts of these apartments with smaller rooms are far more similar to the original floor plan.
From a construction point of view, it was a major effort to gut the original building. A number of steel girders were added in order to bear the loads of the floor slabs in places where interior walls were removed. A large proportion of the construction costs can be attributed to these necessary structural measures.
The heating system in the houses has been fully renewed. The district heat transfer station for the entire block is located in a central service entrance room. The connected load has been more than halved to 280 kW as a result of the refurbishment work. The radiators and heating lines have been replaced.
As a result of the conversion, the heat demand of the apartments has been reduced to 50 kWh/m²a. The primary energy demand has decreased by almost 60 % to 55 kWh/m²a, which is 30 % less than the German Energy Saving Ordinance, required at the time of submitting the building application.
