Twin House in Stuttgart

Stuttgart’s topography is distinguished by its location in a basin-shaped valley: sought-after housing sites are on the slopes surrounding the city, while the densely built-up ‘floor’ holds the actual city centre. It goes without saying that sites with views are very expensive. As a result, they become ever smaller and more densely built-up. Accordingly, the building area did not even permit an interior width of 4 m for each half of the house. And in addition, we had to deal with a site with very restrictive conditions on it, which is why the permit approval process required numerous changes and took two years.

Consistent layering – of the front yard, a garage-like intermediate structure, the enclosed private inner courtyard, the actual building with its south-facing yard and a small garden – is what characterises the precise organization on the site. The interior concept is based on a split-level system: the staircase and the wet areas are at the centre of the floor plan, with equal-sized rooms alongside each. Small openings between the storeys connect the three lower levels, making the dimensions seem larger than they actually are. The two halves of the house differ in their interior finishes: while the character of one half is determined mainly by wooden surfaces, the other side is marked by white painted surfaces. The ceiling slabs and the party walls to the neighbours are all of reinforced concrete left untreated.

The form of the roof resulted from the planning regulations governing the eaves height. This had to be much lower than the ridge, something we could manage with rounded-off contours. The entire external skin consists of copper cladding.