Bachelor Architecture | The Artists’ Tower

Bachelor Thesis | Jochen Schumacher | 6th semester | summer semester 2018

A total of six residential units and studio space is to be created for scholarship holders of the Kunstverein Stuttgart. The artists who used to work in the wagon sheds were temporarily accommodated in a container village opposite the sheds, designed and built in participation of the residents. Shortly before completion of the construction work in the wagon sheds, the continuation of the container village is now being discussed. The Kunstverein considers the container village as an important place for experimentation and artistic research, and would like to continue using these areas even after the reoccupation of the sheds. The following design supports the Kunstverein’s attitude and assumes a continued context of experimentation in the container village.

The Kunstverein’s property forms a square at the southwest end of the wagon sheds. The new building’s positioning is intended to give this square at the main entrance to the area further significance and quality.

Based on the small scale and proportions of the container village, an east-west oriented residential element combined with a north-south oriented studio element in my ‘Two-Level-L’ defines the building’s basic order. Combined and stacked, this will result in six residential and studio floors, sitting on a base floor. The latter will be used as a communal and exhibition area, which the residential floors will be accessed from by a passenger lift. An external staircase realises access to the stacked containers in the in the container village. The design picked up this constellation to create communication zones on each residential floor. These zones allow additional access to the apartments. Each apartment can be connected to an outdoor area, zoned by opening folding glass elements. At the same time a sufficiently large corridor remains for access to the other floors. All studios are equipped with sliding winches to move heavy loads around the studio and, if necessary, to lift material from the ground floor along the façade into the studios by extending the rope winch.

The closed parts of the façade made of corrugated sheet metal underline the building’s industrial character. Through the curved sheet metal they create an analogy to the containers’ outer shell.

The work was supervised by Prof. Harald Roser.