Jones House 4 in 1

24, Quellenweg, Oberselters, Bad Camberg, Germany

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Jones House 4 in 1

24, Quellenweg, Oberselters, Bad Camberg, Germany

Firm

Type

Residential › Private House

YEAR

2008

4 in 1 - family matters
(one house for four generations)

An additional 69 sqm is not a large extension at first sight. But this is exactly the key to the house jones, built in Oberselters, Germany (Hesse). Not the mass, but the recontextualisation of the existing spaces, the quality introduced by the extension to the two-storey single family building from 1955 form the main attraction.

reinhardt_jung addresses a shift from architecture as an object to an architecture that is fundamentally a process. We understand architecture as a verb, a process: eat-drink, sleep, rest, store, have sex, work, think. The house Jones is a fundamentally dynamic architectural space, through a registered movement line of the inhabitants in the house, and parts of the architecture, which are moved like a game set by the participants. Program precedes functions, aesthetic notions preform necessities.

The house jones is designed for four generations and 4 seasons. The six key players are the clients nuclear family with a husband and two sons, her mother and grandmother. The house is a result of three phases, in which each generation contributes one area. The core house was erected in 1955 by the grandfather, a singular extension in 1986 by the father, the latest addition stems from 2004. And each time, new stories are inscribed in old walls. The fabric of life forms the architecture: time, inhabitants, material textures, program and narrative sequences.

The main feature of the house is a folded plane attached to the existing building that transforms the house from inside out, restarting in a split-level system from the main staircase. Backwards and forwards, all rooms are related to a directional staircase, emerging spaces not specifically very wide or large, but very operative. The folded plane turns back onto itself, generating discrete spaces, thickened walls, developing from line into plane into volume. The fold here is not a geometrical exercise but rather uses a Deleuzian strategy with a simultaneity of present, past and future on an architectural, communicative and human level. A stage ramp as a continuous folded plane of narration, of a duration where architecture is not the functional container but evolving. Through interlocking spaces and sequential program distribution, a continued discussion between the generations is evoked.

The 69sqm addition includes a series of interconnected spaces, situated on the plane, informing both interior and exterior of the building. In descending order: an open play room, a balcony, the lounge prior to the dining room, an adjacent seating area, another balcony, the living room with a double-sided fireplace, a workspace cut into the ground, two niche moments, and a Zen patio.

Through the folded plane between new and old structures, a series of spatial typologies are introduced to the existing structure. Spaces that rotate around a central service core, spaces departing from the plane, spaces inserted in thickened walls, and negative spaces with less than six surrounding surfaces.

The folded plane rotates around a central core that contains the main service elements in each level, bathroom and kitchen unit. But it is here where discrete, unforeseen spaces emerge, and a multi-directional perspective. A 4.20m high shower in the sky. A thickened niche with electronic plug-ins. An upholstered lounge. All spaces are a complex integrated formation of several old and new layers, releasing a tension between a variety of textures and materials.

An ornamented wallpaper echoes a past character of the living room. Used as material quote, the close by rail track beams become part of the exterior staircase system. A texture memory is also continued in the steel rod handrail carefully crafted by the grandfather into an interior ornament on the staircase. This line of though is continued with the bending curvature of the light rails in both workspace and fireplace, aligning wall and ceiling in one gentle slope. The kitchen chalkboard becomes a scrap book onto which the client is noting down shopping reminder and calling-friends-list, but also where the little son explores his droodles. Parts of the interior walls do not receive a finishing plaster, but show off a rich texture left by the removed strata of wallpaper. And finally, the traces of the wooden formwork remain visible in the concrete.

In a strategy of object displacement, key items are dislocated and repositioned. The grandmother’s beloved candelabre, a mark of hard labour, finds a new meaning in the fireplace room. The double-sided fireplace becomes the centre around which all other spaces evolve, connecting up and down staircase, dining room, balconies and external seating areas. The large window screens enclosing the fireplace room can be completely opened up, in which case you seemingly sit in the back garden. Key feature of the garden is the solid wall of the gabiones, 60 tons of basalt stone in steel baskets forming the walls of workspace and light well, positioned by family and friends, each single stone one by hand at a time.

Through its specific material, organizational, structural and sequential characteristics, the building supports and enhances what matters – here, family.