Asemwald | O. Jäger, W. Müller and H. Papst, H. Wirth

Germany | 1972 | soft form

Description

The Asemwald development near Stuttgart accommodates 1143 apartments in three slabs. Both the architects as well as the client aimed at making this project into an upmarket location by offering large apartments, high quality fittings, flexibility and a functional layout. Asemwald was supposed to be seen as a viable alternative to a single detached house.

The mix of flats ranges from one-room apartments to six room maisonettes, whereby two to four room apartments dominate. The size of these units ranges from 41 m2 to 154m2, with a typical three-room apartment of between 80 m2 and 105 m2.

The initial concept for flexibility in plan had two points of focus. One was to offer a wide spectrum of sizes and types of layout, whilst the second was concerned with flexibility within a dwelling, which meant that the layout could be determined by each individual user. The latter focus, however, was quite considerably diluted during the planning phase. Nevertheless, thirty percent of those who moved into the scheme immediately after it had been completed made use of the possibility to influence the design of their dwelling plan.

The plan here illustrates one of these potential variations in layout, made possible by the cross wall construction that includes points where a piercing through, in order to add another room, or closing off, or contraction, may occur.

A two room flat can thereby gain or loose, one or two rooms. One two-room unit can thereby be enlarged from an initial 85 m2 to a three-room unit of 95 m2 (by adding the smaller room) or a three-room unit of 100m2 (by adding the bigger room) or to a four-room apartment of 120 m2 (by adding both rooms). The other unit consequently shrinks down to 63 m2. Whilst these calculations typically represent hypothetical exercises, inhabitants of the housing scheme make frequent use of the possibility. Often however, this is not done on a room-to-room level, but by buying an adjacent apartment in its entirety.

References

Hafner, T., B. Wohn, and K. Rebholz-Chaves, Wohnsiedlungen, Berlin, 1998.
Jäger, O., and W. Müller, 'Wohnhäuser am Asemwald bei Stuttgart', Deutsche Bauzeitung, 1964, pp. 504-07.
Planungsgesellschaft mbH URBA, ed., Leben in einer Hochhausanlage: Die Wohnstadt Asemwald aus Sicht ihrer Bewohner, Stuttgart, 1975.
Simon, C., and T. Hafner, eds., WohnOrte – 50 Wohnquartiere in Stuttgart von 1890 bis 2002, Stuttgarter Beiträge, Stuttgart: Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart, 2002.