reuse of an old parking garage as a new housing for munich
We won’t be able to build a new city every 20 years. Demolition makes no sense for either ecological or economic reasons. Today, buildings are often called into question after only 20 years. Be it because they no longer meet the regulations, be it because they no longer meet aesthetic demands or are proving to be too inflexible when it comes to conversion and conversion.
If we want to convert buildings in the future, we have to make them flexible today. This claim has a direct impact on our construction production. Of course, this also has something to do with ecologically sensible building materials, but if we could ensure that buildings would be usable for the famous “100 years”, the building material itself would not be the biggest problem. It is more a question of typological usability.
to adapt is to reuse
The problem with the structure of a typical parking garage is the relative low ceiling height that limits any further use of the space with a different programming than parking. As a result the solution to create spaces for housing is removing parts of every second floor slab giving inhabitants a big open space at the front of the apparent and limiting the use cases of the lower ceiling hight rooms to secondary functions such as bathroom and entry spaces. Hereby the old pillars are kept as the structural elements as the floor slab is only removed in the space before the pillars. Some apartments connect the courtyard and the facade in the upper floor putting the entry spaces below in the circulation area.
With the high depth of the whole structure the need for three small courtyards for natural light is clearly shown. The circulation is placed in the middle of the garage using the old ramps and staircases which are reused for the new use case. Furthermore located on the courtyard sides opposite to the ramps community spaces are located giving users the luxury of space in a horizontal manner when the vertical height is severely limited by the old use of the building as a parking garage.
The lower two floors contain public uses. The southern half of the building has a higher ceiling height and can be used as a supermarket space. The northern part is broken up in smaller functions that remove the floor slab in some areas to create higher ceiling heights for a kindergarten, cafe and community center. As the parking garage was lowered into the ground there a tot-graphic landscape is created with the new uses bridging the height gap between ground level and ground floor.
team partner
sarah shah
