2006–2013 Location: Berlin, DE Client: Private Project Status: Built
The mill building has existed in one form or another since the 16th century and forms part of a historic group of buildings within an environmentally protected Lakeland area to the north east of Berlin. The structure that currently occupies the site is largely the result of an extensive renovation undertaken in the mid-1930s which introduced a formality and somewhat overbearing representational quality to the house. The building then fell into disrepair in the post war period.
The project seeks to reconcile the monument authorities’ requirement to conserve the Nazi-era transformation of the building with our client’s desire to have a relaxed country house with a good relationship to its site. A new garage and garden building form a threshold to the site giving access to a front entrance garden that is densely planted to provide more privacy from the adjoining properties. The exterior of the house has been carefully repaired and restored and the fake half timbering of the first floor has been patinated to subdue the colour variation between timber, stucco and stone, so that the graphic neo-medieval image of the house is made more abstract. On the garden façade a large new opening has been formed to make a garden room, a new space giving physical access and views to the large garden and to the lake beyond. The new opening, and associated first floor windows have been made in cast concrete which in colour and in profile exactly follow the relief and tone of the existing house. The interior of the house has been developed as a rich series of varied rooms. The detail and tonal range of the 1930s rooms have been softened, and their context has been shifted by new interiors and built in furniture whose delicacy and, hopefully, wit, give the whole the atmosphere of an English arts and crafts houses.
