The Elbe suburbs with their green spaces and proximity to the water are a popular residential location. With a bit of luck, you can always find a plot of land here that offers the opportunity to create new living space for several families at once. The concept for the densification was developed by architect Heike Tellmann. Part of the new ensemble is this cubic red-brick house, which offers plenty of living space with a spacious first floor zone for living and dining and an upper floor with three bedrooms as private retreats. There was a lot to consider on this part of the plot. At around 520 m², it was rather small and the surrounding buildings were rather cramped, and it also bordered a private access road on the entrance side and a public footpath on the west side. Against this background of high density and the adjacent traffic routes, the architect attached particular importance to a solution that would take these factors into account and still provide sufficient privacy for the residents.

The key design idea was to fan out the cubic structure according to its functions and to respond to the local conditions with projections and recesses. Instead of a separate garage, it is seamlessly and powerfully integrated into the main house at the entrance and becomes part of the cubic interplay of the buildings on the north-west side. This positioning not only creates a greater spatial distance between the private areas and the public path, but also eliminates the need for paved traffic routes on the small plot, which benefited a larger green area on the side facing the sun. In this way, it was possible to achieve the highest possible degree of privacy for the family. The first floor is currently the center of lively family life. Thanks to the flexibility of the floor plan in terms of room layout and window arrangement, it will be possible to divide up the spacious living area and create a room as a study, guest room or additional bedroom with little effort in the future if needs change.

The lively facing brick forms a beautiful contrast to the cubic structure. The irregular surface of the Wittmund clinker brick in a rustic sorting creates a lively interplay in the sunshine, but also in winter when snow covers the tiny projections. The solid brick is also hard-fired and can therefore perfectly withstand the well-known Hamburg rain as a double-shell masonry.

www.tellmannarchitektur.de

Photos:
Angela Simi
www.angela-simi.de

(Published in CUBE Hamburg 01|25)