COMPETITION HOUSING DEVELOPMENT IN ST. PETER
8010 Graz
1987
TEXTPHOTOSPLANS
GMMK Foto: Elisabeth Mayr-Keber , Gert M. MAYR-KEBER ZT-GmbH. Wettbewerb Wohnanlage Graz St.Peter  1987

The site chosen for the development is defined on the one hand by its gentle slope and the overgrown incline following a curved contour along the median axis, and on the other by the southern boundary of the site which is defined by the road. Of the existing buildings, it is primarily the corpus of the northern terrace building which constitutes a distinctive basic direction.

In this project, through the utilisation of a large-scale articulated form, i.e., a row of houses, the topographical circumstance of the site is taken up and emphasised, but at the same time a field of tension is set up through the contrast with a small-scale form, that of a villa.

Conceived specifically with the access route to the development in mind, the superposition of the 'villa' and the 'long row of houses' in the spatial interplay of individual object with its background is to be understood as a spatial composition that changes as the development is approached.

Man's constant need for identification seeks diversity, a built structure, a type of building to live in, which, through its language of forms and its diversity, its different nature yet at the same time its unequivocalness, makes particular areas capable of being experienced.

In this project the possibility is offered of defining the interior of individual apartments, either with identical ground plans or those which can be altered within the basic structure, through a choice of various types of façade, which may even be determined in collaboration with future residents, and thus of defining an area of the outer 'skin' of the building.

The façade as the 'face' of the house thus becomes a differentiated ensemble of superordinately similar structural units. Terraces, conservatories, loggias or balconies can be designed flexibly; for residents on the first floor, there is the possiblity of external steps leading directly into a private garden, residents on the upper floor (maisonettes) can have access to a roof terrace or, like the occupants of the ground floor, extend their apartments.

The staircases affording access to the building are utilised as structurally plastic elements in the ensemble, which make entry to the building a ritual event and facilitate it psychologically and thus also physically.