ha Architecture

EWH

EMIL WOLFF HOUSE

Construction of a new wooden student residence hall

This project entails construction of a new 98-unit student residence hall in a purely residential, premium location in Hamburg’s Groß-Flottbek neighborhood. The client's main priority is to maximize the building’s volume to optimize cost efficiency. 

Regulatory requirements have resulted in a productive coordination process, the result of which is a timber-panel structure that reflects the shape of the parcel it is being built on and is designed to be modular from the ground floor up.

The building is composed of three right-angled sections connected by two “joints,” together forming the winding floor plan. This results from the adaptive use of the park-like property with the goal of protecting existing trees by building around them. An expressive roofscape is formed by rows of uniform sawtooth roof structures generally oriented north-south. The shape of the roof is also the key design feature of the planned new construction. Thanks to their angles and the direction they are facing, the sawtooth roof structures allow for the most efficient arrangement of solar thermal and photovoltaic systems and contribute to meeting the certification requirements for various green building grants (Reconstruction Loan Corporation (KfW), Investment and Development Bank (IFB), sustainability module of the German federal funding for energy-efficient buildings). They give the appearance of dividing the entire structure into slim units resembling rowhouses whose look fits in with the small-scale single-family neighborhood to the east and which neatly break up the building’s mass.

Photos/visualization: Bloomimages GmbH, Hamburg

EWH 01 Skizze 2000 1270
EWH 02 Zeichnung 1500 810
EWH 03 Zeichnung 1500 810