Initiated by IBA Hamburg 2013, this urban and architectural project offered to LAN the occasion to update a vernacular typology and proved to be a social experience.
In October 2008, LAN won first prize in an international competition for design and building organized by IBA Hamburg 2013, an international construction exposition first held in 1901.
IBA Hamburg is more than just an architecture “show.” It strives to be a true laboratory for architectural, urban, social, and political ideas and initiatives that yield new ways of building cities and living in them. A neighborhood in Hamburg was chosen as the intervention site: Wilhelmsburg, where the project is located. The first competition phase was to design a development that would then become a Bebauungsplan (the equivalent of a PLU, or development plan, in France).
Neue Hamburger Terrassen, Hamburg, Germany
Programme: masterplan with 33 housing units
Client: IBA Hamburg 2013 (competition, masterplan), Neue Hamburger Terrassen GmbH (housing)
Architects: LAN
Team: Franck Boutté Consultants, BASE, Raissi Bidard, Konerding Architekten, Ingenieurbüro Schreyer, RMP Stephan Lenzen
Site surface area: 1,2 hectares
Net plan area (masterplan): appr. 11,000 sqm
Net plan area (architectural phase): 3,500 sqm
One year later, in 2009, the award winners unveiled their architectural project for a housing block. is public presentation was organized by IBA to attract interested parties and to then establish Baugruppen, development groups made up of private citizens who wanted to build their residences together, and who held the role of project managers. The outgrowth of his meeting was the formation of a Baugruppe made up of approximately 20 homes, which opted for LAN’s project for 3 housing blocks; the group was then enlarged to 30 homes in 4 blocks. The architectural studies were completed in July 2010, and the construction permit was led in December.
The worksite opened in September of the following year. The four housing blocks were delivered on an ongoing basis between October 2012 and March 2013, just in time for the inauguration of IBA Hamburg 2013 and the IGS (Internationale Gartenschau, an international exposition devoted to landscape architecture), both of which drew many visitors to the site.
This housing design, which occurred within a unique framework – IBA Hamburg 2013 – draws on Hamburg’s architectural heritage by providing a contemporary, updated version of the traditional Terrasse, a “row-house” type of worker housing. The first challenge in conceiving the masterplan was how to integrate cars into the Terrasse, especially how to limit their impact and place in the public spaces. To do so, the architects scaled the width of the street a minima (6 meters of the 13 meters between the buildings facing each other) and made its pathway as slender as possible to slow down traffic and to give the center a vegetation-oriented feel. Thee covered parking spaces were grouped at the corners of the buildings in order to create a direct and necessary relationship between the ground floors and the public spaces.
Each housing block has 6-10 residences. The buildings also contain individual storage rooms and a common space that hosts the Baugruppe’s communal activities (general meetings, parties, arts and crafts workshops, etc.), and welcomes visitors.
Within the blocks, the 33 housing units are of two kinds: “row-house” and “multi-level” units. The 13 “multi-level” units occupy 1 or 2 levels, and are 50-90 sqm in size. They each have direct access to either a garden with a terrace, or to a loggia. The ground floor residences are fully accessible and usable by persons with reduced mobility.
The 20 row-houses have three floors and a private yard with a terrace facing the street and one facing the courtyard. Their orientation and surface area vary depending on their positioning within the block: east-west or north-south, between 120 and 160 sqm. Workspaces have been integrated into the housing at the residents’ request; there are offices, graphic design studios, therapy rooms, and so forth. Other spatial elements, such as a hopper between the ground and first floors, the positioning of the stairwell, the entry into the kitchen, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms were chosen by the residents.
The enclosures separating the private spaces facing the street were removed, and all the green spaces received the same treatment so that the local residents could truly appropriate them. Two public spaces run through this area, tying the street to its surrounding environment, which consists of a park, a brook, and a pond. In designing the housing models, LAN opted for U-shaped volumes in order to increase the intimacy of the yards and to accentuate the connection with the park located to the east.
Through its creation of interiorities and angles, the new housing block defines three kinds of socialization: public, by facing the street, collective, with yards shared and maintained by the residents, and private, by means of the yards and terraces bordering the apartments. The themes of the individual home, the car, the definition and prioritization of public and collective spaces, as well as environmental quality, have here been reinvented in order to produce a new, sustainable urban model.
In terms of the construction, the architects opted for a shell structure (cement and block, or Kalksandstein-Mauerwerk), which guarantees good acoustic insulation, and wood-frame facades. The panels were built in a workshop and measure up to 9x3 metres. They combine a wood frame, Douglas Fir siding, solar protection in the form of external textile awnings, as well as exterior joinery in colored PVC and triple-glazed windows. 20 cm of cellulose insulation was blown into the wood frames in order to fill the empty spaces between the block walls and the siding.
The final energy consumption goes up to approximately 40 kWh/mqa, and the primary consumption is 25 kWh/mqa. A shared heating plant is located in Building 4, and the heat is then distributed to the other buildings via an underground system. The cogeneration heating (electricity and heat for hot water and heating) is of the Lichtblick Zuhause-Kraftwerk type. Each housing unit has double-flux ventilation with recovery of individual heat.
Rainwater is collected in the yards and empties out into nearby canals.
from domusweb