PROJECTS
Welcome to the e-home
The present-day house celebrates a nomadic way of living
On the outskirts of the Riem district of Munich. Metal gleams behind the hedges. A prototype: the present-day house. Where others have just one entrance this has three, where there should be a patio three platforms, each measuring 40 square meters, face south, east and north, and where most families live under one roof this one has four, no less. The house consists of four separate boxes, three of them at ground level, with a hovering communal platform above. Our first impression is one of ambivalence towards the steel facades, enormous windows and sharp edges, all surrounded by a grove of beech trees like in a Baroque garden. This green ‘curtain’ conceals bathrooms and bedrooms, and only the communal box with its square windows is above hedge-height. Alternating intimacy and the extroverted. That is the key to this project.
The house, a wooden pillar-style of construction is an e-home that combines electronics and living. Its flexible envelope adapts to accommodate any wishes. There is only one thing wrong with it: there is nobody living in it. It is operated by HDG (Haus der Gegenwart) GmbH, a non-profit-making company, behind which Bayerischer Hausbau, Fördergesellschaft Landespflege Bayern e.V. and Magazin Verlagsgesellschaft Süddeutsche Zeitung mbH stand. Right now the "World Champions - Design Germany" exhibition is being staged (through September 15, 2006).