Dupli.Casa, Ludwigsburg, Germany

This House that is called Dupli Casa, the geometry of the building is lbased on the footprint of the house that previously was located on the site, originally built in 1984 and with many extensions and modifications since then is located in Ludwigsburg, Germany, was designed and completed by Jürgen Mayer H. Architects in 2006-07. The new building echoes the ‘family archeology’ by duplication and rotation. Lifted up, it creates a semi-public space on ground level between two ayers of discretion. The design therefore reflects a family vernacular – the different levels of a family presenting as twisted versions of the next, performing different functions but communicating as a whole.

“The skin of the villa performs a sophisticated connection between inside and outside and offers spectacular views onto the old town of Marbach and the German national literature archive on the other side of the Neckar valley,” the architects explain. In such close proximity to Chipperfield’s masterpiece Dupli Casa’s design is able to feature the Museum of Modern Literature as an asset in its own design, responding to the simple lines and blanched colouring. And just as RIBA, who deliver the annual Sterling Prize, commended Chipperfield for his “control and discrimination in the choice of materials” the same could be saluted in Dupli Casa’s design. Concrete walls and wooden floors are used creating a connection between the modern and the old, the natural and the man-made and the inside and outside, similarly achieved in Chipperfield’s columned design which integrates the indoors and out. While the three storey house holds a standing of its own, as a piece defining responsive architecture, its stature grows to reflect this.

Submitted for WAN’s House of the Year 2008, Dupli Casa displays sophisticated shape manipulation to transform a simplistic design into a complex yet comprehensible super-home.