Atelierhaus

Berlin, Germany
2022

Squeezed in between the strict contextual limitations set by the surrounding 4-story-buildings with their uniform eaves and the client´s mandate of realizing an additional floor we asked ourselves how we could fit a five story building of live-work-ateliers into a 4-story-envelope. We devised two architectural strategies. The first one was to design a building using a barrel-shaped roof as that offers full room-height over almost the entire roof level. We also chose to avoid any material distinction between the façade and the roof material so that the eaves of our building were free to not correspond in any meaningful way to its floor levels. As a result the eaves were reduced to an ideal geometrical line that lacked any architectural legibility. Even the ubiquitous gutter as an architectural identifier was removed to allow for a perfectly smooth transition. This approach helped securing the building permit: While building law can specify the eaves height it can neither demand a roof-shape nor an architectural articulation of the transition.