Funktionsneutrale Räume | Walter Stamm
Switzerland | 1987 | soft use
| Address: | Winterthur Hegi |
| Work Type: | competition entry |
| Number of Storeys: | 5- to 6-storey |
| Type of Building: | tenement / apartment house |
Description
Walter Stamm's competition entry for a housing scheme in Winterthur challenges the notion that flexibility is best achieved through free space; instead it shows how flexibility can be achieved in a relatively determined structural and plan form. Stamm proposes a four-storey house, the first two storeys accessible from the ground floor and the upper two storeys from a deck access on the second floor. Stamm sets a primary structure of a series of fixed elements between crosswalls. These elements, some as small as 30cm long, suggest but do not over determine subdivision; the present a skeleton on to which a secondary structure walls and doors may be attached.
The fixed elements are either attached to the external facades as stub walls or are contained in a central zone that runs across the plan and defines the circulation. Service ducts are also within this central zone, located against each of the party walls. The rhythm of the fixed elements, which are set apart by either 60, 90 or 150 cm, gives a wide range of possibilities for subdivision to be determined by the tenant. The flights of stairs can either be contained within a unit in order to create a maisonette type, or can be used as public vertical circulation for the upper storeys. In the latter case, one storey can either be one large unit, or can be subdivided into two apartments. The smallest unit within this system is just over 34 m2, but two 4-storey town houses of 185 m2 and 245 m2 are possible as well as four apartments, each across one storey.References
Kuhnert, N., P. Oswalt, and W. Stamm, 'Die Wohnung für den Zweitmieter', ARCH+, 1989, pp. 30-33.