The Trift district is a counter-design to the privatisation of settlement space. It counters the striving for distance and territorial demarcation that is common on the outskirts of the city with a communal understanding of settlement. The houses on the hilltop form the first stage of a larger project that is committed to the same values – sustainability and collectivity.
The communal centre is the real protagonist of the scheme. In order for this «space of potential» to become as wide as possible on the flat part of the hilltop, the houses crowd around the edges – just as circus wagons form a loose circle before the tent is erected in the centre. The analogy to camping, the associated idea of the temporary occupation of land and its continuous changeability, is the actual leitmotif of the design.
This begins with the arrangement of the buildings, which reject the conventional orientation towards the street line or the panorama. Their informal gathering is, as it were, an initial snapshot, not a fossilised final state. The buildings stand on skids and have only a minimal basement, as there is no underground car park (and the residents do without private cars).
Everyday neighbourly life between devotion and demarcation is also understood as a flexible, designable process. The large barn doors in front of each flat serve this purpose, regulating not only light and views, but also the territories within the continuous porch. To protect these porches, the large roofs extend far beyond the small houses. The separation of the cold roof from the warm house emphasises the additive joining principle of the nailed, screwed and glued timber construction, which already anticipates future change. The plants – hops and bindweed – act as pioneers of appropriation, growing up the front sides of the houses even before the residents take possession of their flats.
The interior is characterised by untreated surfaces and movable furniture and doors, which allow for very different room constellations despite their small size. Large and small flats complement each other. This provides a spatial framework for the vision of people in very different living constellations living together as neighbours.
