DESA1002 'Nine Quarter City' - <Adeline Wang>

Abstract

The building I’ve designed is a luxury apartment complex, aimed at blending in with Bern’s medieval architecture, and offering the most comfortable and lavish of apartment living. This building site overlooks some of Bern’s major entertainment centres – a theatre, and is adjacent to the city’s capital library. So, being in the heart of Bern’s rich cultural atmosphere, housing which may be considered slightly more opulent than required, seems appropriate. The building itself consists of four levels – ground floor shops and cafes, two levels of apartments, with the 2nd level apartments consisting of two storeys. The decision to make the ground floor a commercial space is due to the building’s close proximity to other public areas e.g. theatre and library. Also, based on the assumption that the residents will be more on the well-off side considering the building’s location, cafes and restaurants could be a convenient feature. There are twelve apartments in total, each are quite large in area, raging between 80 to over 100m2. The smaller apartments compensate for their lack of area in having more access to natural light, while all apartments have 3m high ceilings with floor-to-ceiling windows. The front façade, which orientated to the south, is mainly glass, which also maximises sunlight in winter and minimises in summer. Being in Europe where sunlight is important, each apartment also has its own balcony, with most having additional courtyard areas. These courtyards are situated so that the building’s design looks like it’s a series of graduate d levels. This then also means that privacy becomes a bit of an issue, which is where screens and garden elements come in. Privacy was also important in considering the residents’ access into the apartments. There are three entrances to the apartments, with two apartments sharing the same lift and stairwell. This makes sure there’s a sense of privacy for the residents and also gets rids of a need for a central access corridor for all apartments, which then uses up valuable area. The entrances are also positioned so that residents can access apartments from all sides of the building.