Schlangenhaus, 2018
Kigali (Rwanda)
The task of the design was to develop a museum extension to the Richard Kandt House, a natural history museum in Kigali (Rwanda). A room was to be created to make space for the snake collection of the museum. The room program includes an exhibition room as well as a preparation room. The building was to be located in the forest adjacent to the Museum of Natural History.
Before the Christian faith was brought to Rwanda, the people there believed in a creator god. Many other creatures and animals were considered holy. The most important and holy animal was the snake. It was believed that the dead would turn into snakes. Although the majority of the population is Christian today, the belief in the Creator God and the worship of snakes is still deeply rooted in culture. The Schlangenhaus should do due justice to the importance of the snakes by its exaggerated and sacral appearing space. Formally the view of the building reminds of a mausoleum. The simple cubature of the building is wrapped in a pattern, which is based on one of the Imigongo patterns typical for the area, by setting back individual stones.
Schlangenhaus, 2018
Kigali (Rwanda)
The task of the design was to develop a museum extension to the Richard Kandt House, a natural history museum in Kigali (Rwanda). A room was to be created to make space for the snake collection of the museum. The room program includes an exhibition room as well as a preparation room. The building was to be located in the forest adjacent to the Museum of Natural History.
Before the Christian faith was brought to Rwanda, the people there believed in a creator god. Many other creatures and animals were considered holy. The most important and holy animal was the snake. It was believed that the dead would turn into snakes. Although the majority of the population is Christian today, the belief in the Creator God and the worship of snakes is still deeply rooted in culture. The Schlangenhaus should do due justice to the importance of the snakes by its exaggerated and sacral appearing space. Formally the view of the building reminds of a mausoleum. The simple cubature of the building is wrapped in a pattern, which is based on one of the Imigongo patterns typical for the area, by setting back individual stones.
Habitation Montsouris, 2020
Paris (France)
As a large centre of the French North, Paris is also experiencing a positive population development. In order to deal with this development and the ever-diminishing privacy in the city, new housing for 150 apartments was to be built next to the Reservoir Montsouris, including a rethinking of the reservoir open space.
In the middle of the noisy city of Paris, a place of silence, a place of contemplation is to be created. An enclosed garden in the middle of the city. Protected by walls, open to the sky. Some part of this wall will be habitable. In the form of a disc, over a hundred apartments will be oriented towards the garden. Opened up from the city facade, the bedrooms will become a retreat in the green - a hermitage in the middle of the metropolis of Paris.
The residential pane acts as a kind of threshold between the noise of the city and the silence of the garden. The first floors of the building inhabit a library, various studios and commercial facilities. The library hall is connected by an air space with various studios, creating an atmosphere of working and learning together. To be able to read his book in complete silence, the visitor can use an elevator to get to the reservoir floor where he can rest inside the wall, which inside functions as a kind of cloister, or open-air floor. The elevator, the connecting element between the city and the garden, forces its way powerfully out of the building and thus symbolizes the importance of the path into the walled green.
The apartments are accessed via three staircases and arcades. Here again, the contrast between city and garden plays an important role. The living and dining areas of the apartments are arranged along the pergolas, which can be opened to the city at any time by folding elements. One is here a part of the incessantly pulsating city. A functional level, in which bathrooms, kitchenettes, cupboards and so on are arranged, functions within the apartment as the wall that separates the city from the garden. Through it, one enters one's very own retreat - the personal hermitage, situated on the Hortus Conclusus.
Habitation Montsouris, 2020
Paris (France)
As a large centre of the French North, Paris is also experiencing a positive population development. In order to deal with this development and the ever-diminishing privacy in the city, new housing for 150 apartments was to be built next to the Reservoir Montsouris, including a rethinking of the reservoir open space.
In the middle of the noisy city of Paris, a place of silence, a place of contemplation is to be created. An enclosed garden in the middle of the city. Protected by walls, open to the sky. Some part of this wall will be habitable. In the form of a disc, over a hundred apartments will be oriented towards the garden. Opened up from the city facade, the bedrooms will become a retreat in the green - a hermitage in the middle of the metropolis of Paris.
The residential pane acts as a kind of threshold between the noise of the city and the silence of the garden. The first floors of the building inhabit a library, various studios and commercial facilities. The library hall is connected by an air space with various studios, creating an atmosphere of working and learning together. To be able to read his book in complete silence, the visitor can use an elevator to get to the reservoir floor where he can rest inside the wall, which inside functions as a kind of cloister, or open-air floor. The elevator, the connecting element between the city and the garden, forces its way powerfully out of the building and thus symbolizes the importance of the path into the walled green.
The apartments are accessed via three staircases and arcades. Here again, the contrast between city and garden plays an important role. The living and dining areas of the apartments are arranged along the pergolas, which can be opened to the city at any time by folding elements. One is here a part of the incessantly pulsating city. A functional level, in which bathrooms, kitchenettes, cupboards and so on are arranged, functions within the apartment as the wall that separates the city from the garden. Through it, one enters one's very own retreat - the personal hermitage, situated on the Hortus Conclusus.
Lichtspielhaus, 2019
Kalrsruhe (Germany)
Karlsruhe-Durlach cultivates a long tradition in the field of lighting and cinema art. Thus, on the triangular land in the Badener Straße, a cinema house, including apartments and commercial premises, is to be built.
The design has a clear division into a rectangular structure that includes the public facilities and has a residential tower at its head. The ground floor functions as a public square, which can be closed by folding gates. During the opening hours, there will be a cinema, a city stage and a café.
These folding elements shape the entire building and serve as shading elements for the six apartments in the residential tower. The building is intended to create an link to the far-reaching tradition of the play of light and remind us of the appreciation of the play of light as a social event in the 1920s.
