One of the design parameters was that the outer skin should allow the entry of daylight, while screening the building from traffic noise.
The spatial programme contained a complex mixture of uses. In addition to the living and working areas – with a pharmacy and veterinary clinic – space was to be provided for a pet shop, cafe and hotel as further sources of income. Extending over four storeys, the interlocking private, semi-private and public uses might be seen to resemble a puzzle.
At an early stage of the design, the architects inserted two courtyards in the middle of the development to bring light and air into the interior and to allow the creation of planted
areas. A central longitudinal wall forms a kind of dual volume and separates the private dwellings from the hotel on the upper floors. The individual families share two storeys, where zones with varying degrees of privacy alternate. One of the courtyards divides the dwellings into different realms and forms a verdant planted space at the centre. Right at the top are the bedrooms, while one storey below this, the residents live, play music, cook and eat together. The remaining public uses are distributed over the ground floor.
The architects have separated the many different realms without sealing them off completely from each other by using hollow concrete blocks and glass blocks for the facades as well as the dividing walls. The blocks allow varying degrees of transparency – from 30 to 100 per cent, depending on the pattern and fillng. In this way, they create an attractive interplay of transparent and opaque areas. Along the road, the blocks admit air, while
also protecting against noise, dirt and insolation. Internally, they filter out views, create links, partition off spaces and serve as an imaginative system of compartmentalization.
