Arcinspiration

A painted-timber skin that skirts around the top storey of this Hamburg house reveals the heights of staggered floors inside.

Completed by German architects Kraus Schöenberg in 2007, the two-storey Haus W is nestled into a gently sloping landscape.

A living room occupies the entire ground floor and is fronted by continuous walls of glazing that face a sunken garden.

The rooms upstairs, which include bedrooms, bathrooms and a dressing room, are constructed from timber and are arranged at different levels.

A two-storey-high bookcase is the centrepiece of the house and extends through both floors.

This is an affordable prefabricated low-energy house for a young couple and their two children. The family wanted a house which felt like a connected space, but which would also offer individual freedom to the occupants.

The building is separated into an upper and a lower part.

The upper volume consists of rooms of various heights corresponding to their individual function. Bedrooms, bathrooms, the dressing room and the rooms for the children all require different heights and project into the lower living areas. This common space is organised by these staggered volumes without being interrupted by partitions.

Walking around the house takes one through a variety of rooms on the upper level, which are orientated to the garden as well as to the inner atrium. The openness allows the user to combine rooms and functions in various ways.

The walls and floors of the individual upper rooms are built of sustainable CNC-cut timber panels. These do a variety of things: they constitute the finish; define spaces and functions; help insulate the building; are recyclable; create a comfortable internal environment; and offer a cost-effective building solution.

The lower ground floor is cut into the ground creating direct views into the garden while standing up, or offering a feeling of security while sitting down. The various heights of the ceiling above indicate the individual rooms of the upper level.