OFFICE 256

With the relentless densification of Berlin, almost all available land in the Tiergarten quarter, that laboratory of twentieth-century housing schemes, has been exhausted. The project for a new housing block takes up the last empty strip behind a row of buildings along Lützowufer, a tree-lined thoroughfare bordering the Landwehr canal. Wedged between housing, and flanked at one end by a neighbouring block and at the other by a nineteenth-century pumping station with a tall chimney, the building seeks to establish a relative autonomy. More than just an infill, it establishes its own point of reference, appearing as an object-like figure, completely wrapped in a uniform facade that seamlessly merges into the roof. The rounded plan has a central linear core with elevator shafts, kitchens and bathrooms, and it gradually widens towards one end, providing a range of apartment typologies.