House at Lake Plau | Roland Wolff

Located on a sloping plot at Lake Plau in the heart of the “Mecklenburg Lake District“ the single family home is organized on split levels. The tight restrictions imposed by the development plan were used innovatively in the planning phase. The result was an extraordinary and consistently modern building that provides an open spacial concept. By using the slope situation the house appears on the side facing the road as a one-story construction, while on the other side it rises to a two-story structure. The design was determined by the idea to achieve a maximum open and transparent facade overlooking the lake and create mere introverted and closed facade to the street. The doubling of the two upper story volumes makes the two main uses of the building “living and working” clearly visible on the outside. These two independent parts are connected through a open two-story hall that provides a clear view of the lake and has a skylight that supply the center of the building with natural light. In accordance to the modern concept of living the building was equipped with an equally innovative heating system. The building is constructed entirely of solid sand-lime bricks. The outer walls are a two-shell structure of KS-stones, which include inner core insulations. Due to this fact it was possible to construct the outer shell solidly and to cover it with a fine-grained plaster. All rooms are equipped with an underfloor heating. The whole house is heated with a heat pump that uses geothermal energy. For this purpose two deep wells were made. The electricity needed for the heat pump and the components in the house are 2000 kWh/ per year. By using the entire space of the roof for a photovoltaic collector system an amount of 7500 kWh/ per year is generated. The house creates 4 times more energy than it is consuming.