Günter Pfeifer & Annette Rudolph-Cleff - ‘Punkthaus,’...

Günter Pfeifer & Annette Rudolph-Cleff - ‘Punkthaus,’ re-cladding of 1950′s apartment block, Mannheim 2012. The renovation of a field of innocuous post war apartment towers was carried out to make them more habitable, comfortable, and most importantly energy efficient. The existing walls were the constructed out of a mix of crushed brick and concrete, much of which was ruble from structures bombed out during the war (and as such were extremely porous and inefficient). The entire building was wrapped in a new skin of poly carbonate sheets and with double-glazed windows, and the basement filled with stacked stones to create a thermal mass. In the winter, warm air is trapped in the space between the skin and stored within the mass of the basement stones, in the summer, the stones cool the structure and the hot air is expelled upwards by vents on the roof The skin also creates an added dimension of depth to the facade, accentuating the openings and creating a new focal point for the development. Via, photos © Claudius Pfeifer.

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