It’s a very popular place to live: where life unfolds out on the street and Muenster gains something of a big-city feel. Yet living space is very limited in the densely developed urban district that used to be home to port workers. This is due in part to the low-rise building style but also to the sometimes very spacious layouts of the dwellings.

In 2017 the Kresing brothers had the option to acquire one of the terraced houses from the 1950s. From the outset, the vision here was to adapt the existing structure of the floor plans to the needs of society today and to set a flexible course for the future. Another major objective was to make a real contribution towards reducing the energy consumption of the building, and this was achieved with load-bearing structures made of a renewable material, namely wood, and exclusively mineral-based insulating materials, whereby the saving amounted to 30 % based on the existing “EnEv” building code.

The complete renovation of the façade but also the reactivated garden and roof level make use of large-format windows made of wood, which define natural light and far-reaching views as a major component of the building. The architects are also making use of color, which they believe the district can support very well. Next to the red brick and the muted tones of the rendering, the raspberry red stands out, hence the former workers’ district is thus gaining a new building that enlivens it from within while remaining true to its own family and origins.

The volume of the building has only changed marginally in the form of the extension on the roof; otherwise, the outline continues to follow the existing lines of the district’s development. Hence, for the architects, both color and metallic material represent another way of lending a certain abstraction to the renovation. Communal areas like the garden are available to all residents. The existing store premises have been maintained, which breaks up the façade as before, and four creative women, who are sharing a co-working space, have moved in. The previous floor plan has been entirely redesigned. Alongside the drop of 60 cm in the basement and the extension to the gabled roof, residential space has also been extended by the repurposing of the balconies.

The new, wood-supported external wall was positioned in front of the outer edge of the existing balconies. This way, the depth of the space has been increased so that it was possible to incorporate smaller units on the west and east sides. Much effort was also made to avoid corridor space as much as possible. The perceived spaciousness of the rooms is primarily achieved, however, through the large-format, floor-to-ceiling wood windows. Thus, all units are not only flooded with daylight but also boast French windows – a clever trick that perfectly compensates for the loss of the former balconies. The design aims to achieve consistency in the edges of the buildings and the lines of the district’s urban development. 

In contrast to standard renovation practices, the design of the outer shell makes use of a load-bearing structure made of renewable material and metallic skin. The overall desired effect is an abstraction, which is brought strongly to bear by means of the surface feel and color yet with respect for all the existing proportions within the context.