"Children's House" in Tettnang
- Roland Pawlitschko
At the intersection of the historic centre, the new central business district and small-scale residential neighbourhoods, this new “Kinderhaus” operates in concert with nearby church-run facilities. At the urban scale it fulfils two distinct functions. First, its location on the southern edge of the property screens the outdoor play area and the houses behind it from the street. Second, the 75 m long structure, topped with a folded roof, provides a clear edge in a heterogeneous urban space. The light-toned brick facade and numerous loggias cut out of the two long elevations give the building – for children aged one to six – an inviting, open appearance. The corridors double as play space; the openings in the floor, combined with the classrooms’ glazed partition walls, interweave the interior and exterior spaces. The facades, floors and the sides of the loggias are all clad in the same brick – a mix of reddish-white water-struck bricks. The bricklayers were instructed to view what would normally be considered the back side of the clinkers as the “face”. By working with bricks from a single lot, the architects ruled out unwanted colour deviations. The light-grey sand-surfaced expansion joints also play a role in the building’s unified appearance: the colour matches the mortar joints and the precast concrete window lintels and sills. The brick veneer cladding the lintels and sills was made by sawing slices off the clinkers.
