New House by Buero Bechtloff in Aumühle, Germany

Project: New House Architects: Buero Bechtloff Location: Aumühle, Germany Area: 9,418 sq ft Photography: Piet Niemann

New House by Buero Bechtloff in Aumühle, Germany

Buero Bechtloff designed a new house in a beautiful location in the German town of Aumühle, near Hamburg. Spacious modern living areas covering just under 9500 square feet provide the perfect seclusion among picturesque natural landscapes in all directions.

Outside the town of Aumühle, in the Hamburg area, a new house was built for a married couple. The goal was to create a sustainable building with a bold design solution that can be lived in for a lifetime without renovation.

The unusual shape of the building results from the topography of the site itself. The Z-form connects the leisure, living room and kitchen areas, as well as a spacious garage area for three cars.

The new house can be approached along a path beside the road. The entrance area is divided into two parts at an angle of 115 degrees. In the north-western section are private leisure areas, bedroom and wardrobe, two bathrooms and a utility room. In the basement included in this section are a workshop, two additional storage spaces and service rooms, a laundry room and a small apartment with two rooms and a view of the garden.

On the southern part are the kitchen with dining area, living room and office which can be separated into individual zones thanks to large doors from floor to ceiling. To use the living room fully even in old age, all rooms are designed as fully accessible. All rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows facing west onto the extensive garden. The curved panel on the garden side allows one to feel the curve of the entrance area. A large paneled ceiling, integrated into the roof, creates a distinctive shadow effect inside and outside.

An innovative technical solution is the steel frame roof attached to a concrete roof. It overhangs by two meters and serves as a framework providing sufficient shade for sunlit rooms. Blinds built into the ceiling allow dimming of the interior when needed. In hot summer months, excessive indoor temperatures can pose a serious threat to health, especially for the elderly. To counter this, the entire building wing can be cooled using an ice storage system with no emissions, allowing active temperature regulation inside.

The elongated single-story form of the building creates a dynamism that is repeated in the simplified facade design. Dark, thin brick is used as a decorative element on exterior surfaces and emphasizes the horizontal nature of the building when combined with curved walls and custom-made rounded panels.

–Buero Bechtloff