Lütjens Padmanabhan Waldmeisterweg

In this house, a twenty unit low rent apartment building set in the remains of a garden city, the shape of the building and its plan are strangely at odds with each other. The building’s polygonal shape consists of a series of planes that create a kind of demarcation line, enforcing and responding to different spatial qualities of the site. Its plan resembles a rectangular city map that has been cut out to fit into the shape of the building. It shows the impossibility of an organic relationship between façade and the texture of the interior spaces.
The façade is a cladding of lapping Eternit boards embedded in thin wooden posts. A central frieze divides the elevations in to two halves. It is the point of origin of a free rhythm of vertical pillars that structure and strain the skin of the building. The delicacy of the façade’s tectonics has its precedent in early Renaissance architecture. Its Material and colour recall the cheerfulness and dignity of anonymous beach house architecture.