New-build detached house Dresden

Code Unique

Products

10 1242
Single door handle

British ar­chi­tect John Pawson subtly revises an iconic Mod­ernist handle – the ‘Reich Shape’ handle by Hans Poelzig – quietly breath ing new life into this fa­mil­iar form. Fab­ri­cated in classic bronze, Pawson’s metic­u­lously pro­por­tioned design reworks the oval cross-sec­tion to produce a handle that is com­fort­able in the hand and pleas­ing to the eye – the latest ex­pres­sion of an idea that has been re­peat­edly mod­i­fied over the course of nearly a century.

10 1242
Single door handle
17 1736
Lever rose
17 1737
WC-Bolt-Rose Fitting

Three-room flat as modern pavilion

A de­tached three-roomed apart­ment – that’s ba­si­cally how the min­i­mal­ist black pavil­ion could be de­scribed that the ar­chi­tects at the Code Unique prac­tice in Dresden have in­serted into a ram­bling hor­ti­cul­tural land­scape behind a listed 19th-cen­tury villa. It was con­ceived for a father and his ju­ve­nile son and con­tains pre­cisely what both need, namely a private room for each to retire to plus a spa­cious com­mu­nal area given over to the en­ter­tain­ing of guests.

The build­ing’s laid-back looks and black-car­bonised timber façades blend in well with the strik­ing space around. A process of ju­di­cious in­ter­ac­tion with the sur­round­ing urban green­ery has lent the struc­ture a quite unusual foot­print, in­clu­sive of a gentle cutaway in the south-fac­ing façade to re­spect­fully ac­com­mo­date an ex­ist­ing stand of trees. An elon­gated timber terrace with a flat can­tilever roof adheres to, and ef­fec­tively helps define, the con­tours of what is a de­cid­edly unusual ground-plan.

The plot’s some­what sloping nature ben­e­fits both the ar­chi­tec­ture and those it houses. The build­ing lies half in­terred in the earth to the north. Its north-west­ern façade is cut back at the corner to yield a small covered area outside abut­ting a slope sup­ported by weath­er­ing steel. This has been con­fig­ured as a small terrace with an outdoor shower in direct prox­im­ity to both the bedroom and the bath­room. The view af­forded from the bedroom evokes a sense of being on holiday in warmer climes – shingle and a natural stone wall with grasses, with a small set of steps leading to a restful seating area.

Architecture and Object

Photo: Code Unique Ar­chitek­ten: Volker Giezek, Peter Jarisch, Martin Bo­den-Pe­r­oche (f. l. t.. r.)
© Michael Bader

“Our sin­gle-storey build­ing in black nestles in­con­spic­u­ously amongst trees that have long stood on the site,” is how the ar­chi­tects at Code Unique de­scribe their de­tached house project. “The re­duc­tion­ist use of con­crete, timber and steel imparts an aura of tran­quil­lity, safety and in­clu­sion to the build­ing both inside and out.”

Breezy and in a positive sense simple

The entire south-fac­ing side of the house is glazed from floor to ceiling. Broad sliding doors give on to an ad­join­ing terrace. Two narrow, non-open­ing windows are all that were fore­seen for the re­main­ing façades – that to the west as a source of light for the ex­posed-con­crete seat by the fire­place, that to the north serving a work­sta­tion divided off from the rest of the ac­com­mo­da­tion by fitted shelv­ing.

There are no walls at all to the open-plan living room, which is lent struc­ture by means of ded­i­cated fitted fur­nish­ings in white-lac­quered MDF. The restful at­mos­phere per­vad­ing spaces derives from the con­sis­tent use of but a few ma­te­ri­als. Walls and ceil­ings have been fash­ioned in exposed con­crete. A floor-to-ceil­ing fire­place in waxed steel echoes the dark­ness of the façade. Lambent oak floor­ing in the living quar­ters con­trast starkly with the slate with which the floor and walls in the bath­room are lined. This is a space whose impact is defined by the nat­u­ral­ness of the slate as well as by its ex­tra­or­di­nary el­e­gance.

Project leader Martín Bo­den-Pe­r­oche sought a lever handle for the house’s doors that would “accord with the design scheme in a self-ev­i­dent yet elegant manner”. He de­scribes the FSB 1242 fitting as being “time­less, breezy and in a pos­i­tive sense simple”. “Un­der­state­ment” turned handle design! Linear and geo­met­ri­cal as its oval-sec­tion grip may be, it nev­er­the­less rests com­fort­ably in the user’s hand. “The agree­ably rounded pro­tru­sion at the back is a par­tic­u­larly snug tactile ex­pe­ri­ence,” the ar­chi­tect en­thuses. Flush-re­cessed handle roses and the omis­sion of a key rose merely serve to make the handle appear more elegant still.

Object Details

Photo: Teaser and Photos 1 to 5: © Robert Gomm­lich,
Photo 6: © Code Unique