Part of a floorplan
HaUer’s so-called Maxi architecture was predicated on
flexibility: exterior and interior features like windows
and doors could be dismantled and moved within a steel
framework whose elements were based on a modular
measurement of 120/60cm.
Haller went on to conceive Midi and Mini systems that
were used widely for smaller-scale projects, such as
the Schárer family’s house, which overlooks the HaUer’s
Münsingen factory.
This three-storey apartment building in Berlin provides
the capacity for change through its form of construction,
which allows the expansion and contraction of individual
dwellings within the same structure. The building is
designed on a grid using a reinforced concrete frame. A
central staircase divides the building into two halves, each
of which is unobstructed apart from a few columns and a
service duct. The size of one ‘half and design of the common
hallway with its multiple doors allows each floor to
have two, three or four differently sized apartments. The
architects show a variety of possible layouts, testing their
design for long-term flexibility. The plans indicate the spatial
division into ten units, but the number of apartments
could be as low as six or as high as twelve.
At a later stage, two adjoining units could be merged
into one large unit (with one of the entrance doors blocked
up) or a smaller unit could be enlarged by taking space
off another, though the latter adaptation would depend
on tenancies. The advantages in this form of flexibility lie
not only in its potential to respond to its user’s periodic
changing requirements but also in the long-term adaptability
offered by the dwelling within a changing market
situation.
Plan
Van den Broek and Bakema’s project for extendible
houses is an example of intentionally planning for future
expansion, something often overlooked in normal housing
design. On an elongated plot of land, the architects
proposed a narrow house not unlike a nineteenth century
British terraced house. This core house contains a
small front yard; it has a kitchen with direct access to the
back garden, and a combined dining and living room on
the ground floor. The core house in its smallest state also
has a second storey, which houses three rooms: a larger
room to the front and two smaller rooms towards the back
of the house.
This smallest functional unit is designed to be expanded
by pushing out horizontally to the front and back, and vertically
upwards. Towards the front, on the site of the front
yard, an additional room can be built, which might be a
garage, a small shop or a guest room. Towards the back,
the entire rear garden can be transformed into a series
of rooms that are organised around a courtyard — which
almost doubles the useable space on the ground floor.
Finally, planning permission allows for an additional room
to be built on top of the first floor flat roof. Together these
changes allow for the initial house of 85m2 to be transformed
into one of 130m2.
Van den Broek and Bakema’s project for extendible
houses is an example of intentionally planning for future
expansion, something often overlooked in normal housing
design. On an elongated plot of land, the architects
proposed a narrow house not unlike a nineteenth century
British terraced house. This core house contains a
small front yard; it has a kitchen with direct access to the
back garden, and a combined dining and living room on
the ground floor. The core house in its smallest state also
has a second storey, which houses three rooms: a larger
room to the front and two smaller rooms towards the back
of the house.
This smallest functional unit is designed to be expanded
by pushing out horizontally to the front and back, and vertically
upwards. Towards the front, on the site of the front
yard, an additional room can be built, which might be a
garage, a small shop or a guest room. Towards the back,
the entire rear garden can be transformed into a series
of rooms that are organised around a courtyard — which
almost doubles the useable space on the ground floor.
Finally, planning permission allows for an additional room
to be built on top of the first floor flat roof. Together these
changes allow for the initial house of 85m2 to be transformed
into one of 130m2.
Van den Broek and Bakema’s project for extendible
houses is an example of intentionally planning for future
expansion, something often overlooked in normal housing
design. On an elongated plot of land, the architects
proposed a narrow house not unlike a nineteenth century
British terraced house. This core house contains a
small front yard; it has a kitchen with direct access to the
back garden, and a combined dining and living room on
the ground floor. The core house in its smallest state also
has a second storey, which houses three rooms: a larger
room to the front and two smaller rooms towards the back
of the house.
This smallest functional unit is designed to be expanded
by pushing out horizontally to the front and back, and vertically
upwards. Towards the front, on the site of the front
yard, an additional room can be built, which might be a
garage, a small shop or a guest room. Towards the back,
the entire rear garden can be transformed into a series
of rooms that are organised around a courtyard — which
almost doubles the useable space on the ground floor.
Finally, planning permission allows for an additional room
to be built on top of the first floor flat roof. Together these
changes allow for the initial house of 85m2 to be transformed
into one of 130m2.
Van den Broek and Bakema’s project for extendible
houses is an example of intentionally planning for future
expansion, something often overlooked in normal housing
design. On an elongated plot of land, the architects
proposed a narrow house not unlike a nineteenth century
British terraced house. This core house contains a
small front yard; it has a kitchen with direct access to the
back garden, and a combined dining and living room on
the ground floor. The core house in its smallest state also
has a second storey, which houses three rooms: a larger
room to the front and two smaller rooms towards the back
of the house.
This smallest functional unit is designed to be expanded
by pushing out horizontally to the front and back, and vertically
upwards. Towards the front, on the site of the front
yard, an additional room can be built, which might be a
garage, a small shop or a guest room. Towards the back,
the entire rear garden can be transformed into a series
of rooms that are organised around a courtyard — which
almost doubles the useable space on the ground floor.
Finally, planning permission allows for an additional room
to be built on top of the first floor flat roof. Together these
changes allow for the initial house of 85m2 to be transformed
into one of 130m2.
The Adaptable House, developed by the British Ministry of
Housing and Local Government (MHLG) in 1962, emphasises
the changeability of the plan as a means for providing
flexibility. The design for the development of this
house was based on findings and recommendations published
in the seminal Parker Morris Report in 1961. Parker
Morris stressed the importance of a building’s adaptability
to future needs. Whilst the consideration of the stages
in a family’s life cycle and their expression in space had
already played an important role in the 1930s (i.e. Vroesenlaan
by Van den Broek), it became a central focus again in
the 1960s and 1970s.
The architects at MHLG illustrated this concept with
a diagram that differentiated between seven stages in a
family’s cycle over a period of fifty years starting with marriage,
the arrival of two children within five years, another
child within the next 5 years, the growing up of all children,
their leaving the house gradually, up until the final
stage from year 35 when the couple is on their own again.
Architecturally, this programme is accommodated in
a two storey L-shaped house with kitchen, dining room /
playspace, WC and one additional room on the ground
floor. The additional room is accessible both from the
entrance hall as well as via a door to the living room and
can be used as a hobbies room, bed-sitting or guest room.
The large living rooms on ground floor can be used for different
functions and activities, and subdivided as necessary.
Depending on the number of occupants in the house
a large space to one side of the staircase on the first floor
can be divided into two rooms.
Plan
William Wurster”s proposal for The new house 194X’ competition
was initiated by a short manifesto in which he lists
the inherent and fixed problems of residential dwellings:
unalterable areas, arrangements with permanent wall
partitions, and a size that is usually limited to minimum
initial needs and impossible to expand except at considerable
expense. In place of these he proposes a fixed outer
shell — an undivided space of 36 feet by 54 feet la total
area of almost 180m2) which is raised one storey above
ground level, with a long staircase arriving in the centre of
the elongated plan. The principle here is not one of gradual
expansion and addition, but of subdivision. Wurster starts
with an abundance of inexpensive space that can then be
adjusted over time. With this one-floor house Wurster
uses the concept of excess space; space that is as simple
and economical as loft construction and allows everything
from maximum openness to complete division.
Initially, the completely open space would be divided
only by a completely prefabricated kitchen bay, bathroom
and closets. Later on, with children, it could be further
subdivided into a series of smaller separated areas
or rooms through the addition of closet units. These,
Wurster indicates, are factory-fabricated units for space
division and storage. Two standard sizes in two heights
cater for all needs: as clothes closets, as shelves for
books and magazines, as a sideboard, as a storage cupboard
for brooms and ironing equipment and as laundry
unit. As with Corbusier’s Maisons Loucheur, Wurster
offers additional space beneath the house for expansion: a
space that can be the garage, a garden store, a social hall
and /ora utility room.
Plan
This house is representative of the traditional Japanese
house that is organised as a series of interconnected
spaces that can be joined or divided by means of sliding
partition walls. The individual rooms are only separated
by lightweight walls and can never really be fully (acoustically)
isolated. The flexibility that derives from this principle,
is one of indeterminacy. The openness of the plan
as well as the frame construction suggest that functional
and social changes can be dealt with easily — both on a
daily as well as on a periodic or even longer term basis.
Connections between rooms can be opened or closed
through sliding screens, which make it possible to change
the size and the function of a space in a matter of seconds:
two individual rooms can be joined by simply opening
up two large screens so that two small spaces become
one large room that can be used for a specific festivity or
family gathering. The actual flexibility and adaptability of
the house is thereby completely dependent upon the active
participation of the users (as well as a specific type of furniture):
by pulling out futons from a storage cupboard, a
room that was used as a dining or sitting room can be
transformed into a bedroom; the minimal approach to furnishings,
and the relative lack of other clutter, demands a
discipline to achieve flexibility that may be beyond normal
living patterns, but nonetheless the principle remains and
has fascinated generations of architects. Flexibility is also
enabled through a modular approach to design. The size
of the rooms is based on the standard measure of tatami
mats, with rooms made up of a set of these mats. i.e. 6
or 8; these and other building components are thus interchangeable.
Plan
The Sutton Dwellings by Frederick MacManus & Partners
were commissioned by the Sutton Dwellings Housing
Trust (now William Sutton Housing Association) and built
according to Parker Morris standards. The new dwellings
extend an existing 1915 estate, which also belongs to the
Trust.
The client brief required accommodation for singles
(bed sitting room apartments], disabled people (tworoomed
apartments) and families (five-person apartments).
The entire development has forty-eight dwellings
on five storeys, with four staircases serving two units
each on floors one to four; the apartments on the ground
floor are accessed straight from the pedestrian access on
the rear of the block. The ground floor accommodates the
single person apartments; the first, second and third floor
accommodates family apartments; and the top floor contains
the two-person apartments.
The entire programme, from residential and down to
the garages, is accommodated within the same structural
grid within a reinforced concrete frame construction. The
loadbearing elements are contained within the external
skin, with one additional row of columns on the inside of the
building. Apart from these few structural elements, only
the staircase core is fixed in plan. This allows considerable
flexibility in the internal planning, as is shown in the original
drawings that show a variety of layouts within the same
shell. Each of the family apartments hasa condensed central
core that contains a bathroom, separate WC, a number
of storage cabinets and the kitchen. The remaining
space can be divided according to the needs of a particular
occupant.
The Sutton Dwellings by Frederick MacManus & Partners
were commissioned by the Sutton Dwellings Housing
Trust (now William Sutton Housing Association) and built
according to Parker Morris standards. The new dwellings
extend an existing 1915 estate, which also belongs to the
Trust.
The client brief required accommodation for singles
(bed sitting room apartments], disabled people (tworoomed
apartments) and families (five-person apartments).
The entire development has forty-eight dwellings
on five storeys, with four staircases serving two units
each on floors one to four; the apartments on the ground
floor are accessed straight from the pedestrian access on
the rear of the block. The ground floor accommodates the
single person apartments; the first, second and third floor
accommodates family apartments; and the top floor contains
the two-person apartments.
The entire programme, from residential and down to
the garages, is accommodated within the same structural
grid within a reinforced concrete frame construction. The
loadbearing elements are contained within the external
skin, with one additional row of columns on the inside of the
building. Apart from these few structural elements, only
the staircase core is fixed in plan. This allows considerable
flexibility in the internal planning, as is shown in the original
drawings that show a variety of layouts within the same
shell. Each of the family apartments hasa condensed central
core that contains a bathroom, separate WC, a number
of storage cabinets and the kitchen. The remaining
space can be divided according to the needs of a particular
occupant.
This project develops the idea of a single space that is surrounded
by the essential minimum of services, with kitchens
and bathrooms pushed to opposite sides of a single
large space. A series of angled sections of wall provide
the connecting point for concertina panels. The various
permutations of the opening and closing of these panels
gives a wide variety of potential spaces and use patterns.
Areas can be connected with each other as well as isolated,
though never acoustically. In the end, the occupation
of the house, whilst suggestive of flexible use, is actually
over-determined by the design. To live in these spaces
with their interconnections and rooms opening off one
another would demand a real commitment to the ¡deals
of flexibility.
Plan
Of all the seminal houses of the twentieth century, it is
the Schroder Huis that has most fascinated architects as
an exemplar of flexibility. However, some of this interest
is misplaced, since the house is a highly tuned response
to a very particular set of requirements, and therefore it is
problematic to extrapolate generic principles from it. The
house is organised on two storeys around a central core
that contains the staircase. Whilst the ground floor plan
is subdivided in a conventional way into separate rooms:
kitchen /dining, a reading room, a studio room (plus adjacent
dark room) and a bedroom — the hinged sectional
moveable screens of the first floor allow for the creation of
one single continuous open space.
The design of the Schroder Huis joins the spatial concepts
of De Stijl with Mrs Schroder’s aims to overcome
the socio-spatial hierarchy of the normal house whilst
also maintaining some privacy. As in the traditional Japanese
house, the flexibility of the Schroder Huis relies on
the participation of the user, who is constantly employed
to create enclosure and then dissolve it again. During the
day, the hinged screens are pushed towards the outer
walls of the building and either kept in storage cupboards
or gathered behind short fin walls. When closed again,
the screen in the centre doubles up as a door, so that
each room can be accessed separately from the hall: two
rooms for sleeping and one living /dining room.
Of all the seminal houses of the twentieth century, it is
the Schroder Huis that has most fascinated architects as
an exemplar of flexibility. However, some of this interest
is misplaced, since the house is a highly tuned response
to a very particular set of requirements, and therefore it is
problematic to extrapolate generic principles from it. The
house is organised on two storeys around a central core
that contains the staircase. Whilst the ground floor plan
is subdivided in a conventional way into separate rooms:
kitchen /dining, a reading room, a studio room (plus adjacent
dark room) and a bedroom — the hinged sectional
moveable screens of the first floor allow for the creation of
one single continuous open space.
The design of the Schroder Huis joins the spatial concepts
of De Stijl with Mrs Schroder’s aims to overcome
the socio-spatial hierarchy of the normal house whilst
also maintaining some privacy. As in the traditional Japanese
house, the flexibility of the Schroder Huis relies on
the participation of the user, who is constantly employed
to create enclosure and then dissolve it again. During the
day, the hinged screens are pushed towards the outer
walls of the building and either kept in storage cupboards
or gathered behind short fin walls. When closed again,
the screen in the centre doubles up as a door, so that
each room can be accessed separately from the hall: two
rooms for sleeping and one living /dining room.
The Next 21 project was constructed as an experimental
residential complex in Osaka, Japan, by Osaka Gas Co.,
Ltd. The building was initiated in order to test new models
for reducing energy consumption and preserving the environment
through waste processing (water and refuse) and
greening at the same time as creating apartments that
suit and can adapt to individual residents’ needs and lifestyles.
Whilst most of the dwellings during a first phase of
occupation (April 1994 to March 1999] were proposed by
Osaka Gas, others were designed by the residents themselves.
The project closely follows the principles of the
Open Building movement, and is often used as an example
of the benefits of a support and infill approach.
The building takes account of different needs and time
horizons, both in terms of social occupation but also in
terms of construction, with the latter being differentiated
according to the particular life span of each component.
Building elements are divided into two groups: long-life
elements that provide the communal structure (columns,
beams and floors), and short-life elements in private areas
(partition walls, building services and equipment), which
can be adjusted without disturbing the overall integrity of
the system. This is clearly expressed in the aesthetic of
the building, with a stable and relatively ordered structure
framing a more diverse infill suggestive of change.
Wall components are based on a modular system and
can be placed anywhere on the predetermined grid. The
services form a separate constructional layer. Wiring and
piping for gas, water and electricity are located in raised
floors or suspended ceilings. When parts have to be
exchanged, or when systems have to be renewed, panels
in the ceiling or floor plates allow easy access.
The Letohradská apartment block in Prague employs a
strategy of indeterminate space, providing rooms without
specific designation. In contrast to Bruno Taut’s Hufeisensiedlung,
where the same strategy is applied to mass
housing, Rosenberg used it for inner city luxury apartment
houses with generous space standards.
Each floor, apart the top and ground, has two units:
one 2-room (just over 80m2) and one 3-room apartment
(around 125m2]. The individual rooms within each apartment
can be accessed via a central hall. The larger apartments
have added flexibility of use through additional
doors or sliding walls, between two rooms.
The open column and beam construction allows for
the relatively free distribution of rooms. Partition walls
are non-loadbearing, which leaves the entire area of each
storey indetermined as to their specific use — as can be
seen in the design of the top storey apartment in the same
development. The only limit in the subdivision of the plan
is imposed by the number of connection points to service
ducts and the relatively deep plan of the building.
The Letohradská apartment block in Prague employs a
strategy of indeterminate space, providing rooms without
specific designation. In contrast to Bruno Taut’s Hufeisensiedlung,
where the same strategy is applied to mass
housing, Rosenberg used it for inner city luxury apartment
houses with generous space standards.
Each floor, apart the top and ground, has two units:
one 2-room (just over 80m2) and one 3-room apartment
(around 125m2]. The individual rooms within each apartment
can be accessed via a central hall. The larger apartments
have added flexibility of use through additional
doors or sliding walls, between two rooms.
The open column and beam construction allows for
the relatively free distribution of rooms. Partition walls
are non-loadbearing, which leaves the entire area of each
storey indetermined as to their specific use — as can be
seen in the design of the top storey apartment in the same
development. The only limit in the subdivision of the plan
is imposed by the number of connection points to service
ducts and the relatively deep plan of the building.
This mixed use development for an inner city site in Zurich,
comprises three buildings of which two are mainly residential
and one is commercial. Around 240 people live in
the development and a further 90 people have their work
place there. One of the initial ideas of the project was to
provide spaces for a group of 15 to 20 people to rent (600m2
over two storeys), which could not only be subdivided and
designed according to their ideas but also self-managed.
These ‘Suiten’ were intended to allow different forms of
communal and co-living through a variety of communal
and private spaces. Although the full extent of these
spaces didn’t materialise, the building blocks feature a
large variety of flat sizes, ranging from 2.5 room flats to
units with up to 13 rooms, from 31m2 to 350m2, from singles
through families to groups of independent people.
The variety in apartment sizes is enabled by a repetitive
constructional system of crosswalls, which can be
knocked through at points. The crosswalls are spaced at
the width of a typical residential room (2.8m and 3.5m),
dimensions that allows an almost infinite arrangement
of layouts. Units are served by a central circulation and
service core, but it is also possible to insert private internal
staircases between crosswalls, to create two- or even
three-storey apartments.
Haus A, an eight-storey block is organised around four
vertical circulation cores, which are connected via a large
corridor on the ground floor as well as interior roads —
rues intérieures — on the third and sixth storey. On the
ground floor are communal uses such as a kindergarten,
a bar, studio spaces and some commercial units, whilst
the upper storeys are residential. Haus B3, the second
residential block, has three- to seven-room apartments,
maisonettes, and studio apartments on four storeys.
Built at the urban periphery of Goteborg, the Kallebàck
housing development can best be described as a shelving
unit that provides individual sites for single detached
houses. It takes the concept of support structure to its logical
conclusion, stripped down to the provision of the floor
of the shelf, vertical circulation and a few service connections.
Each house is set on a concrete floor plate, and can
have its own facade treatment, floor plan and (surprisingly)
roof. The front of the ‘shelf forms the edge of a balcony
for each house. The design of the house is then based
around a system of demountable partition walls, wall
cupboards and doors, all fixed to the concrete floor plate.
2 people are needed for changing parts: one to hold the
element, another one to fix it.
The initial idea was that the shelves would be filled up
overtime. However, such was the popularity of the scheme
that all the plots were taken from the start and each of the
houses designed more or less to their full extent. Whilst
this might have been against the wishes of the architect,
the scheme still retains a playful sense of a set of mobile
homes perched in the air, exuding a sense of past and
future change. However, some critics have dismissed the
scheme as a one-off oddity with few wider lessons.
Two studies, one after two years of inhabitation, the
other after eleven, found that changes continued to be
made by the inhabitants. The first study found that the
majority of the occupants had chosen to buy into the
project specifically for its potential to change and therefore
had an active commitment to the possibilities of
flexible design.
This experimental housing project was the winner of an
ideas competition for new housing types arranged by the
Gõteborg municipal housing company Bostadsbolaget
in 1950-51. The building has 20 apartments on five storeys:
two apartments of 42m2, eight apartments of 54m2,
five apartments of 68m2 and five apartments of 83m2, all
arranged around two staircase cores.
Tage and Anders William-Olsson’s project has two
main features: an open plan and modular infill. The fixed
elements of the plan were reduced to a bathroom on the
side of the staircase and a kitchen unit along the party
wall. There was then just a single column in the middle of
an otherwise open space. All partitions were made with
a modular system of demountable panels, either 20 or
60cm wide (and 80cm wide elements for doors], with open
joints.
Prospective occupants were shown suggestions for
interior layout, which they could determine before they
moved in. Published plans show the variety of arrangements
for each apartment. The modular partitioning also
enabled tenants to continue to change the layout over
time. A subsequent study showed a wide range of developed
layouts, with living rooms from 18m2 to 37m2 (where
initially they had been 18m2) and other rooms down to a
minimum of 5m2.
The building still stands, but for number of reasons
the demountable walls have been replaced. There were
problems with acoustic transmission between rooms and
with the visible joints, which residents disliked and wallpapered
over. The housing association that managed the
apartments also lost interest in the flexible aspects of the
scheme and ceased the supply of spare parts.
The houses on Erasmuslaan, Utrecht, simplify some of
the principles that Rietveld first developed in the Schroder
Huis. The plans are based on a one-metre module and a
structural system that allows the free subdivision of the
open space. On the ground floor, space can be adjusted
and subdivided by means of folding concertina walls,
which are guided on floor and ceiling tracks. The upper
storeys are divided more conventionally by partition walls,
whose positions follow the underlying grid, with all rooms
separately accessible off the vertical circulation core.
In each of the four houses, staircase, kitchen and bathroom
are grouped together and are placed to one side of
the space of each living unit. On the ground floor, the walls
enclosing this core are the only fixed elements in plan. The
concertina walls divide or open up the remaining space. If
these wall panels are pushed to one side against the fixed
wall, the openness of the large space (11 metres in length
and between 4 and 7 metres in width] emerges to its full
extent. If pulled out, the panels divide the space into up to
three smaller spaces of 15m2, 20m2 and 24m2 (though it
should be noted that one of these ‘rooms’ does not have
its own access from the central core, thus potentially limiting
its usage).
Unlike Mies van der Rohe’s Weifienhofsiedlung project,
the facade is not interrupted with structural elements,
nor are there any loadbearing columns in the centre of the
space. At Erasmuslaan, the crosswalls are a double skin
of loadbearing brick which support I-beams that span the
width of the each house. In theory, therefore, each of the
internal walls could be placed somewhere else or could
be removed altogether.
This structural principle enables a continuous band of
steel framed windows on the facade. Yet, in order to provide
possible connection points for the establishment of
internal partition walls, slightly wider window profiles are
placed at two-metre intervals.
Das Grundstück wird mit einem 5-geschossigen Hofhausgebäude, das von der Roelckestraße zugänglich ist, bebaut. Der Blockrand wird durch den vorgeschlagenen Baukörper vollständig geschlossen. Das Gebäude ist über den West-Ost ausgerichteten, begrünten Hofraum erschlossen, der zudem als Gemeinschafts- und Spielfläche dient. Im Gebäude werden verschiedene Wohnformen (Geschosswohnungen, Maisonetten, Town-Houses) angeboten. Diese sind jeweils mit einem großzügigen, verglasten Balkon, der als „Garten“ beschrieben wird, ausgestattet. Die Dachfläche wird ebenfalls als Gartenfläche konzipiert. Die vorgeschlagene Schottenbauweise erlaubt die Kombination von Räumen ähnlich einem Baukastenprinzip zu unterschiedlichen Wohnungs- bzw. Nutzungstypen. Im Erdgeschoss sind gewerbliche und gemeinschaftliche Nutzungen (Läden, Büros, Ateliers, Kindertagesstätte) vorgesehen.
