Kirchberg Housing

Location: Kirchberg, Luxembourg

Client: Fonds Kirchberg, Societe Nationale des Habitations a Bon Marche
Date: 2015 Competition (1st Prize), 2019 Completion
Total Area: 6,600m²
Budget: €11,5M

Team credits:
AZPML: Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Maider Llaguno-Munitxa, Guillermo Fernandez-Abascal, Manuel Eijo, Ivaylo Nachev, Riccardo Maroso, Gabriele Brunettini, Francesca Lagomarsino, Laura Binaburo
B/NT: Aldric Beckmann, Laura Ros, Amelie Rigaud, Héléna Menon
Renders: SBDA

The masterplan contemplates three blocks, a large one along Boulevard Konrad Adenauer, and two smaller ones perpendicular to it.

The terraces are made part of a differentiated horizontal band running around the façade, which constitutes the main design feature: a three-dimensional fretwork. The vertical staggering of the terraces to increase daylight and opening to the sky for the adjacent rooms, and the articulation of the height of the solid band of the façade to differentiate the amount of views, light and ventilation for every room type conform the horizontal bands as a fretwork.

The variation of the fenestration size for every room will allow us to reduce the fenestration ratio below a 40%, optimizing both the capital costs and the thermal performance of the envelope. We adopted the material assignments of the masterplan, which required the use of brick as the material for the three-dimensional fretwork, generated from the functional requirements of every room type. The three-dimensional bands create the complexity that we avoided in the massing of the blocks to minimize costs and maximize thermal performance, and creates a distinctive identity to the architecture of the complex.

The units are distributed in two structure-free 7m deep bays. The shell will be built with a slip form concrete system with 200mm walls and 250mm flat slabs spanning 7m between the walls. The plan layout ensures that all the units except one unit per floor on blocks B and C will present a dual aspect. The units will be all naturally ventilated due to the small depth of the bay. The interior layouts minimize the corridor space, using the living room as a central distribution space with the kitchen incorporated in the space.