Haus Kiegelmann // DE  

The single family row house is at the fringes of a new housing area. The clients were looking for an open house with relation to the surrounding nature and a privacy from the settlement at the same time.

The site slopes down from the garden to the street with a height difference of three meters. This slope of terrain differentiates the garden and street side of the house. While the house from the garden side appears to have two floors it seems to have three floors at the street side. The ground floor is on the same level with the terrain on the garden side and two meters above the street at the front side.

We took the difference of the front and back side of the house as starting point for the project. The desire for an open house we provided by large windows on the garden side and enhanced the relation to nature with separate and private balconies in front of for the kids bedrooms. The street side of the house is dominated by the closed volume of the upper floor. Here the private rooms for the parents are situated with a reduced relation to the outside. The upper floor is cantilevered over the ground floor to create a protected entrance situation.

The ground floor is conceived as a continuation of the openness of the garden. The terrace connects the garden and the living room over the wide of the building and the large windows provide a strong visual connection from the ground floor to the garden. At the street side the higher ground floor is exposed by the covered entrance. The floor to ceiling windows at the street side give a hint of the openness of the ground floor towards the garden.