Stuttgart’s topography is distinguished by its location in a basin-shaped valley: sought-after housing sites are on the slopes surrounding the city, while the densely built-up ‘floor’ holds the actual city centre. It goes without saying that sites with views are very expensive. As a result, they become ever smaller and more densely built-up. Accordingly, the building area did not even permit an interior width of 4 m for each half of the house. And in addition, we had to deal with a site with very restrictive conditions on it, which is why the permit approval process required numerous changes and took two years.

Consistent layering – of the front yard, a garage-like intermediate structure, the enclosed private inner courtyard, the actual building with its south-facing yard and a small garden – is what characterises the precise organization on the site. The interior concept is based on a split-level system: the staircase and the wet areas are at the centre of the floor plan, with equal-sized rooms alongside each. Small openings between the storeys connect the three lower levels, making the dimensions seem larger than they actually are. The two halves of the house differ in their interior finishes: while the character of one half is determined mainly by wooden surfaces, the other side is marked by white painted surfaces. The ceiling slabs and the party walls to the neighbours are all of reinforced concrete left untreated.

The form of the roof resulted from the planning regulations governing the eaves height. This had to be much lower than the ridge, something we could manage with rounded-off contours. The entire external skin consists of copper cladding.

Clients:
Arno Lederer und Jórunn Ragnarsdóttir, Karlsruhe
Marc Oei und Dagmar Feuerstein, Stuttgart

Architects:
Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei, Stuttgart

Team:
Stefanie Lempart

Structural Engineering:
IB Yaman Basli, Leonberg

Construction period:
2001 – 2002

Location:
Gunterstraße, 70191 Stuttgart

Publications
Lederer, Arno / Ragnarsdóttir, Jórunn / Oei, Marc (Hg.):
Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei 1
Jovis Verlag Berlin 2012

Stuttgarter Nachrichten
17.04.2009

Falk Jaeger (Hg.):
Lederer+Ragnarsdóttir+Oei
Berlin 2008

diseño interior
173 | 2006

Katharina Heider (Hg.):
Doppelhäuser und Reihenhäuser
München 2006

L’architecture d’aujourd’hui
357 | 2005

Adato
3 | 2005

Interior Digest
Moskau, 10 | 2004

Häuser
2 | 2004

Markus Brodbeck, Darius Ramazani (Hg.):
40 Räume.
Ludwigsburg 2004

100 Häuser für 100 europäische Architekten
Köln 2004

Architecture Today
143 | 2003

Stuttgarter Nachrichten
20.12.2003

Deutsche Bauzeitung
9 | 2003

Photos
Zooey Braun, Stuttgart
Roland Halbe, Stuttgart