Berlin-based architecture practice J. Mayer H has completed a private residence with "box in box" concrete volumes in Northern Germany. Called Casa Morgana, the three-story building was radically transformed from the existing building built in 1972 and its annexes built in 1991, were reduced to their shells and then retaken with targeted interventions.

Instead of creating a rough cosmetic make-over, the architects built this house as a new location that distills and continues the archaic and brutalist aesthetic from the time of the building’s original emergence.

Casa Morgana is surrounded by neighboring homes dating from the late 19th century, the building acts like an abstract volumetric study for a potential building and seems to have fallen out of context. 

Surrounding nature simulates a subtropical oasis and locates the residential sculpture between optical disturbance and atmospheric displacement. The three-story building consists formally of several differently sized cubes placed at staggered levels on top of one another, connected by a central stairway. 

The cubature of the building was focused upon with architectural additions of exposed concrete and the partial removal of ceilings and walls. Staggered floors and different room heights create vertical links and manifold sequences of rooms. Separating elements between the individual areas are formed as poché rooms and take up different functions. 

The mirrored walls reflect the exposed concrete, the terrazzo installations appear like cuts through the concrete walls and expose the inner structure of the material. The roughly improved already existing concrete walls also create a hybrid of reduction and projection. The large glass pivoting doors opens the entire living area into an oasis of bamboo, tree trunks, palms and mushrooms designed by the artist Tita Giese.

J. Mayer H. und Partner, Architekten mbB is an international award winning architecture office with projects at the intersection of architecture, communication, and new technology. Founded by Jürgen Mayer H, the practice recently designed one façade of the Museum Garage in Miami.

All images © David Franck

> via J. Mayer H