House FMB
The children should be able to play. This was the first wish of the clients, and architect Stephan Fuchs and his project manager Michael Gehrmann from the Stuttgart office of Fuchs und Wacker were delighted: "If someone tackles his life's dream and still keeps an eye on everyday life with his family, then it can be a beautiful house. Actually, only then! One in which things come together to form a harmonious whole: Aesthetics and atmosphere, functions, proportions, the place to play football...
That's exactly what it became: a beautiful house. Complete, clear and balanced, uncompromisingly modern, luxurious and reserved at the same time. It blends into its surroundings.
This was the second wish of the owner of the house and his wife. May their house show respect for their property above the city centre of Esslingen and still demonstrate elegance, openness and self-confidence. It nestles flat on the southern slope; nothing visually stands in the way of passers-by on the road - but from the outdoor seat on the valley side with the small maple tree in its middle, from the living and dining area and from the home office, the view from the panoramic windows extends far over the city with its proud towers and medieval half-timbered houses to the forest and mountains beyond.
Meanwhile, in the sheltered, spacious courtyard in front of the garages and on the ramp to the street, the children and their friends could curve around on go-carts, and when they become sweaty and dirty, in need of a cooldrink, they find their own entrance where they may cast their sneakers into a corner. In the garden there is still a soccer goal. When guests arrive in the evening, they enter the house through the hall, where a slim, white spiral staircase draws the eye upwards. Every spiral staircase wants to be a sculpture - this one is one!
Thus, Fuchs and Gehrmann have given their design a carefully formulated but clear sense of theatre, from public to semi-public, to private and intimate. The visitor, the children, the novel on the terrace, the evening by the fireplace: the rooms are of generous openness, the boundaries of accomplished discretion. And everywhere there is breadth and light. Outside, a goal seems to have been dropped. Should further offspring announce themselves: welcome!
