Guest House University of Hamburg, Hamburg , 2015

The new guest house of the University of Hamburg is to be built in the immediate vicinity of the listed Museum of Ethnology. The triangular site is located in a high-quality urban conservation area, which was severely affected by destructions during the Second World War and planning mistakes in the post-war period. The new building therefore plays a key role in the effort to strengthen the prestigious appearance of the Wilhelminian style district, part of which is under a preservation order. The urban figure we propose occupies the northern corner of the property along Feldbrunnenstrasse and Mollerstrasse with a distinct gesture. As a result, the new building keeps an appropriate distance from the Ethnological Museum and creates a spacious garden with a high recreational quality in the southern part of the property. The building is structured by deep courtyard-like recesses, similar to the typical urban principle of the Hamburg “Schlitzbauten” (multi-storey residential buildings with a T-shaped ground plan and lighting slits on the rear side), so that its volume adapts to the proportions of the small-scale villa structure of the neighbouring development.