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NEW BUILDING
Fontenay One

NEW BUILDING Fontenay One

The thought of Hamburg's Rotherbaum district triggers associations with white, listed villas, quiet streets with old trees and direct proximity to the Außenalster lake. And this is no coincidence, as it is not only the district with the fifth largest university in Germany, but also one of the wealthiest and most sought-after in the Hanseatic city. After demolishing an existing building in the street called Fontenay, the gap was filled with the construction of two new four-storey townhouses complete with staggered storeys and underground parking.

Project
New construction of 21 condominiums
Client
BV Fontenay 1a/b GmbH
Service
5-8 HOAI
Area
3.200 qm GFA
Location
Fontenay in Hamburg, Rotherbaum
Photography
Martin Lukas Kim

Fontenay ONE stands not only for the house number, but also for the living quality that was to be realised with this new building.

Although the development plan called for an elongated building, the original small-scale structure of the neighbourhood was still to be taken up. For this reason, the building was conceived as a coherent block, but divided along the façade by loggias, oriels and balconies, thus becoming two individual townhouses in purely visual terms. The north-south orientation of the site was optimal for this building project: the bedrooms of the 21 flats all face north towards the quiet inner courtyard and the living rooms face south towards the street.

In a high-quality residential project like this, the high-quality details in particular play a supporting role. One of these is the curved wooden handrail in the staircase of the residential building with integrated light line, which provides indirect light below the railing. Another is the stone façade bands that contribute to the horizontal structure of the building. Three different materials, namely plaster, natural stone and fibre cement, meet flush at the joints, but they all require different façade structures and thus presented a planning challenge.

Fontenay Eins
Site map
Ground floor
First floor
First floor
Elevation north
Elevation south
Section
Section

The entire structure was equipped with large window elements that can be darkened via an external sun and privacy screen. The flats on the staggered storey have balconies all around, which are accessed via the large panorama windows with sliding elements. And this component is not an off-the-shelf product either: due to the heavy weight of the glass panes, a special substructure had to be developed in order to be able to close and open the sliding glass doors safely and effortlessly.

Voices from the team

Taking on a design from service phase 5 is always a special moment. And the exciting challenge is to continue the design character down to the smallest detail.

Anika

My favourite detail in this project is the curved wooden handrail. In order to realise such a tight radius of wood, which nevertheless does not look squat, but airy, we had to do several rounds of planning with the executing company.

Sarah