"Box on the Roof" is the name Reinhold Budde gives to his unusual house and living project – unusual,
first of all, because of its situation. The cube for living is on the roof of a former coffee roasting
plant, "Ogo", in Bremen-Hastedt, in direct proximity to the local power station, which visually
dominates the city district.
The form and location of the house raise questions: what prompted the artist Reinhold Budde to
construct a residential box on a roof? What attracted him to this incisive setting?
This essay aims to answer such questions.
Bremen’s industrial and commercial areas, which include the quarter around Föhrenstraße in Hastedt,
continue to be hit by restructuring measures which have brought far-reaching change or reuse to
almost all the areas previously dependent on port operations. Typically, the areas affected by this
development are settled in and occupied by pioneers belonging to a specific social milieu: artists,
musicians or designers, generally representatives of the creative fields. For these individuals, a
place in a state of radical change represents the ideal breeding ground for their creative production –
and at the same time, cheap living space is always welcome. In the post-industrial age, the settlement
or restructuring of buildings, urban areas or entire city districts that no longer fulfil their original
purposes is a phenomenon affecting the metropolises of industrial nations all over the world.
Particularly ports are subject to such immense radical changes, since the dynamics of changing
markets affect them with especially. They often develop as an experimental field for unconventional
forms of living and innovative architecture. Outstanding examples are the London Docklands of the 1990s,
the port of Rotterdam, or currently, the Speicherstadt in Hamburg.
Originally, the former Ogo building provided Reinhold Budde with studio space, until with time – under the influence of this special location – he developed a desire to live there as well. As a consequence of his studio’s location on the second floor, directly below the flat roof, the idea quickly emerged for an extension of the existing floor area to create the necessary living space: an additional structure on the roof was the solution, while also representing a challenge in design to the builder, which he began to pursue consistently. The structural and legal preconditions for the development of the roof as a living space were given, and so the planning process began. Reinhold Budde formulated his concept for an extension more precisely with the idea of a "box on the roof". He then found a partner with whom he could realise his idea in architect Uwe Lamping. The building phase lasted from summer to autumn 2008.
Formally, it is a kind of box for living: a cube-shaped, single-storey structure with a flat roof, for which “building land” was found on the roof of the functional building from the 1950s comprising 3 to 4 floors of staggered height, clad in red brick. The box is not incorporated as an organic volume into the existing building, but set on top as an addition; viewed from the outside, its form and materiality make it contrast quite obviously to its surroundings. The box with its shining black casing of plate steel creates a contrast to the dull red brick of the building below.
Access to the box is through the part of the studio apartment located below it. One enters the studio, the first room of Budde’s living ensemble: a big, well-structured working space. The dominant colour is black, the central theme in Budde’s artistic work (1). Here, the floor covering is black linoleum, as it is throughout the whole apartment. Adjacent to the studio are living areas; almost all the rooms on this level face south. The power station opposite dominates the view from the windows. The way to the apartment’s second level – to the box – is via a staircase from the living-cum-kitchen area adjacent to the studio. This staircase is fitted into a narrow, separate stairwell and thus generates a particular spatial impact. On the one hand, it is the materiality that contributes to this effect: oiled beech wood, framed by smoothly plastered white walls and the impressive height of the stairwell space, which extends over both floors and intensely focuses one’s view – either up to the top or downwards, depending on one’s position. On the other hand, a slight irritation is triggered by the height and depth of the steps, which deviate minimally from the DIN-standard. The stairwell is not directed towards the centre of the upper space, so that upstairs one can turn either left into a large living space or right into a smaller working area. Both of these areas are kept open; there are no doors. The impression gained from the outside, of something stacked on top, something added, is not conveyed here at all – indeed, the opposite is the case. The extension of circa 40 m2 fits harmoniously and logically into the spatial order. On this level, sliding door elements and windows to ceiling height (= 3 metres high) open the structure onto a wooden terrace facing south. It is only here that one essential attraction of the box is revealed: a view of the Weser as it flows in a wide curve past the port of Hastedt.
The construction of the box’s load-bearing structure is a wooden post and beam structure subsequently clad with layers of insulation and plate steel using a “sandwich process”. The metal elements of the outer casing – steel, windows and blinds – are painted in RAL 9005, a deep black, meaning that here we encounter Budde’s artistic theme, the colour black, once again. The materials and colours of the interior, where there is black linoleum on the floor and white, smooth plastering on the walls and ceiling, create a space of almost contemplative character. This is underlined by the sparing, accentuated furnishings like a black leather sofa, Japanese floor seating (Zaisu Tai), a bookcase, and a sideboard designed by Reinhold Budde. Nonetheless, powerful dynamics develop between the calm, concentrated interior and the active exterior due to interrelations with the power station and river panorama.
The subject of Japanese architecture soon arises in conversation with Budde. His sources of inspiration are architects like Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito or Sanaa and consequently also the European architects of Modernism, Mies van der Rohe or Bruno Taut. In their works he found models for his construction and its materiality, but also for the incorporation of the surroundings. All these are essential elements of Japanese building tradition. But the consistent spatial reduction, the creation of space using carefully selected and consciously placed materials, also display a deep correspondence to his painting and printed graphic art. "I transport my work into three-dimensionality" is a key statement that Budde has made about his living project – it is an aesthetic pendant to his work as a painter.
Forms of living reflect styles of life. The "Box on the Roof", therefore, should be seen not only as the realisation of an individual concept for space; it can also be attributed to the phenomenon of "Rooftop Living", which has produced more and more examples in recent years. Rooftop living was inspired by a related, meanwhile established, but once unconventional form of living: the loft. Individualists, intellectuals and artists often wish to oppose or to question standardisation. In the lifestyle sphere, living and working in a loft was one of the early departures towards new forms of living. Originally developing in the New York of the 1940s due to the housing shortage, unused factory floors were popular as studio space for artists because they were cheap and extensive. Andy Warhol’s "Factory" became a model for entire generations of artists and made the loft into an attitude to life. Long ago, the loft became a symbol of a lifestyle that seeks individual freedom and lives it. Here, "how to live" emerges as a task of differentiation in a finely nuanced living environment.
It almost seems like a logical outcome to "top the loft". The search for modular and flexible solutions by which to extend existing living and working space has led to other examples comparable to the Budde-box in recent years.
Designer Werner Aisslinger caused a sensation in the design world with his highly stylised "Loftcube" (ready for mass production since 2007). This is a mobile single room, which can be set on any structurally load-bearing, flat roof. It is extremely flexible in usage and can be employed either as an extension space on a roof or as a housing unit for autonomous use. The designer envisages transporting the Loftcube per helicopter to the high-rise roof of the customer’s choice - as housing for the solvent, cosmopolitan, big-city nomad. Similarly characteristic is the project "Zusatzraum" (Additional Space) by Exilhäuser architects (Pfaffing near Munich) dating from 2000. They developed a minimal structure, a satellite for the fastest possible erection beside a main house; it is viewed as one of the first autonomous, flexible housing units of this kind.
The most recent example came from MVRDV, an architectural office in Rotterdam: this is "Didden Village" in Rotterdam (2007), whereby a small "village" has been built on the roof of an old textiles factory. All the added structures, including the little houses, floor area and the surrounding roof parapet, are covered in a sky-blue cloak of plastic. An ensemble of futuristic appearance has thus developed, presenting an extreme contrast to the house below with its red-brick façade: the credo of architect Winy Maas is “the concentration of urban living space”. (2)
In terms of form, the Budde-box can be compared to these examples. However, its conceptual starting point goes further than a purely architectonic solution: the consistently reduced aesthetics, the materiality and spatial concentration of the “Box on the Roof”, mean that Reinhold Budde has transposed his artistic structures into an architectural language of his own. He has succeeded in creating a specific place that generates a dynamic balance with its surroundings and establishes itself as a pole within an extreme environment; in the field of conflict between inside and outside, concentration and dissemination, river, power station, roof and factory.
1) For more details on Reinhold Budde’s artistic work, see Corona Unger: Painting and Graphic Art, in:
Reinhold Budde, Hachmannedition, Bremen 2007, p. 10 - 14
2) Winy Maas, quoted according to Christian Tröster, in: Das Dorf auf dem Dach. In: A& W Architektur & Wohnen, Issue 1/09, Jahreszeiten, Hamburg 2009, p. 82