City Apartment and Green City Hotel | Barkow Leibinger Architects

The Stadthaus M1 marks the gate to the Vauban quarter of Freiburg – a “green city” partially automobile free, with an emphasis on alternative and sustainable living and architecture. The task of the competition was to design an apartment building complemented by a hotel and shops at the ground level. The construction of wood and concrete is modeled after a "passive house" standard.
This 1st prize winning competition design consists of a separate hotel and apartment building unified by the continuous topography of the roof-scape and facade. The higher and more public hotel is located as an entrance at the main artery of Merzhauser Straße while the more private apartment building continues behind the hotel along the Vaubanallee. The spatial gap between the two buildings forms a green “pocket park” that opens and widens towards the south allowing a path between the buildings and a connection to the public circulation and green-room fronting the buildings. This articulation improves daylighting and breaks down the overall building mass on-site.
The low-tech facades save both energy and costs. They are highly insulated in wood construction with 3x insulating panel glazing with integrated retractable louvered sunscreens. The south facades, complimented by loggias and balconies, are additionally protected by climbing plants on steel cables in front of the facade. This layer of planting shades the interiors in the summer while allowing warming sun through in the winter. The north facing facades is cladded in vertical cedar wood-fins, an element that further unifies the two independent buildings visually.