Stuck in the Middle: 8 Residences With Freestanding Service Cores

Since the Modernist period, architecture has had the combination of service and living spaces as one of its core considerations. Functionalist architects, following in the tradition of machine aesthetics, sought to celebrate the spaces that allow for the operation of a building. This philosophy was epitomized by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier’s body of work — summed up in his now infamous adage “a house is a machine for living in” — where architecture in its entirety was designed around the provision of functional service spaces.

Since then, American architect Louis Kahn formulated a design strategy that remains largely prevalent in housing design today. Kahn aggressively segregated spaces by their classification as either a space that was to service (a served space) or a space that served another space (a servant space). Not only were the two spaces divided, but service spaces were made invisible to the inhabitant or user of any of Kahn’s projects. It is in this spirit that a number of our contemporary normative building practices have been shaped: hiding plumbing and electrical behind drywall, tucking bathrooms into out-of-the-way corners, creating invisible and often inaccessible storage spaces in the excess spaces of basements and garages.

The following projects all approach the relationship between service and servant spaces in a novel way. In a conceptual hybrid between Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn’s strategies, each of the residential designs that follow consolidate the servant elements into a freestanding core. While these cores each hide individual functions in a monolithic mass, the units are far from hidden. These freestanding service cores each celebrate the machines that allow the home to function without reverting to the machine aesthetic.

Apartment in Amsterdam by MAMM Design, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The rooms in the Apartment in Amsterdam are all organized around a single service tower. The tower consolidates the service spaces of the kitchen, bathroom and toilets with circulation all around an existing pipe box to create a central focal point in the space.

CUBE HOUSE by MGK Architects, Rome, Italy

Combining all the service spaces required by the client (kitchen, bathroom and storage), into a single cube makes for an accessible cube, after which the CUBE HOUSE is named. The cube is made in a dark reflective glass that at once conceals the services within and makes the volume the apartment’s centerpiece.

Downtown studioby Tamas Szen Molnar, Budapest, Hungary

In order to maintain the open floor-plan of this double-height studio space while enclosing some function, Tamas Szen Molnar combined select programs into a polished cube. The cube serves as a bathroom, kitchen and dining room over two floors and creates varying degrees of privacy for each program in the otherwise open space.

Chattanooga Residence by Object Agency, Chattanooga, Tennessee

The Chattanooga Residence relies on a single architectural gesture to create divisions between functional spaces and living spaces in the otherwise open, long and narrow 19th-century factory space. The kitchen and bathroom are combined into a freestanding cube that anchors the end of the space.

40 m2 / 430 sqft Apartment by SFARO Architects, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

In order to convert a studio apartment into a one bedroom, SFARO Architects condensed a number of functions into open space for the bedroom addition. The kitchen and bathroom are combined in a freestanding unit with storage spaces for the living spaces on either side of the cube.

Cube Suisse by Alcmea architectes, Paris, France

In Cube Suisse, the architects thickened the partition wall between the bedroom and the main living space in this Parisian apartment. The wall works simultaneously to provide privacy in the bedroom and as a functional core with a kitchen, bathroom and built-in storage.

KüBox – rooftop customization “sauce” Neukölln by DoYouSpace, Berlin, Germany

In order to re-renovate an apartment last completed in the 1990s, DoYouSpace consolidated the apartment’s service spaces into a single plywood cube in the center of the space. The cube becomes part of each of the rooms that surround it and provides a custom storage solution for each.

Cube 1.0 by Francesco Busi, Florence, Italy

Making both a formal gesture and a functional one, Francesco Busi’s functional cube is designed to solve the problem of limited square footage, placement of necessary service programs and a visually stimulating design. The cube physically separates the rooms of the apartment and connects them visually through the cube’s repeated appearance in each space.