Am Hofgartel

(quoted from „emerging architecture I”, Otto Kapfinger, 2000)

Four rows of two-storied row houses superimposed on covered arcades. The lower apartments have fenced-in, ground-floor gardens while the upper ones offer outdoor access to shallow terraces in front of the living area over its entire width and feature fully usable roof gardens complete with loggias. In addition, the three east-west orientated rows are positioned in such a way that a green area with pond and orchard remains free to be used as a communal playground.

Despite the relative density, the multi-storied building is designed to provide each apartment with a protected and cultivable open space as well as with an optimum of sun and views. To this end, the architects carefully modulated the cross-section of the individual tracts from a formal as well as functional viewpoint: from the 2^nd floor up, the building tapers so that the sun also reaches the neighboring tract in the winter. The terraces and gradient optically diminish the height of the building. Due to the parapet on the 2^nd floor, the upper floors remain concealed from view to the garden below, the roofed pergolas also restrict the view. A structural skeleton out of concrete with insulated lightweight timber walls and floor-to-ceiling sliding glass elements specially developed from standard profiles. The complex is set up by “Neues Leben”, a co-operative society.