Dupli.Casa, Villa MRMM

Computer rendered view of the Villa

Project Details

• Name of Project: Dupli.Casa, Villa MRMM
• Location: Ludwigsburg, Germany
• Client: Private
• Principal Architect: J. Mayer H.
• Design Team: Georg Schmidthals, Thorsten Blatter, Simon Takasaki
• Realization: 2006-2007

Computer rendered night-time view of the Villa

The Building

The archeological footprint of cleint's family history is the initial point of design for this new villa built on a slope near Ludwigsburg, Germany. With the former building having expanded into an unexpected and extraordinary outline, the architect breaks down the two upper stories into a profile that is duplicated, lifted and twisted towards the garden level in one move.

The result is sculptural outer walls, which continue indoors and act as the elements of organization. They generate cores containing functions like stairways, wardrobes and utility rooms. The space between them is explored as a generous continuum of space with its heart in the lobby: This vertical and sky lit space reaches over two stories, binding the various programs into a coherent unit.

The garden floor adopts a far conservative scale and includes individual spaces for the children and an indoor pool with a wellness area. New vertical stairways lead to the upper story where the cladding creates pockets of increased privacy buffered by their depth.

Villa Familie - Floor Plan [opens in a popup window - 25KB image]

The Skin

Comb-like arranged panorama windows and introverted loggias behind the building skin accentuate layering in the design, blurring programmatic and geometric boundaries. The homogeneous skin formally unifies the spatial concepts of the different stories and integrates the family around a common space. An innovative insulation system converts the radii and angles into precise geometries and enables the connection of classic materiality and progressive shapes.

Credits

• Text and Photographs: Courtesy, the architect
• Compiled and edited by Mitesh Saraf