An urgent need for affordable housing requires the search for solutions for urban overcompression.

The design concept for the building set proposes a compact housing development and develops a reduced and playful architectural form language. In particular, the design formulates responses to the essential design criteria, which seek a cost-efficient but at the same time sophisticated architectural response and therefore internalize the intended use of space as a design criterion. The central space requirements are effectively met, the consumption of space is minimized, and the building ensemble can thus be carefully inserted into the neighborhood, thus making its contribution to urban and urgently needed overcompression.

The ensemble consists of three identical buildings, which differ slightly in their arrangement, orientation and height, adapting themselves to the context. However, the uniform floor plans with a total of 78 apartments allow for the desired living space, but they support cost-efficient serial planning and construction. The buildings rest on a slightly terraced underground car park with a total of 116 parking spaces, which connects all three buildings and also integrates the compensated parking in a connected area. The underground car park is only partly entrenched on the side of the slope, thus mediating between the different levels of the topography, thereby permitting natural ventilation and level accesses and exits to the Nikolausberger Weg and Am Kreuz.

The differently sized apartments are grouped around a central rather generously dimensioned inside staircase house with elevator and skylight, which can be reached via a welcoming foyer with double floor height. The foyer is also to serve as a neighborly meeting place in which seats and small storage areas are accommodated. Each apartment has a loggia with an adjacent balcony, which offers a generous privacy with privacy.

 On the eastern park deck, just south of the playground, there will be a community area for the neighborhood, where benches, tables and loungers to linger and to invite neighborly exchange. We see this as an enrichment and quality improvement in neighborly coexistence. Parents can also meet here while the children next door play in the playground. The neighborhood opens to the south through a spacious sun terrace with wide terraces, where the residents can sit or lie down in the sun with cushions.