Rooftop Remodeling
Falkestrasse 

The law firm Schuppich Sporn & Winischhofer wished to extend their offices upwards. The attention was focused on a large meeting room, flanked by several smaller office units. The project is comprised of two stories with a height of 7.80 m, and a surface area of 400 m². The spatial layout consists of a 90 m² meeting room, three office units, a reception area and adjacent rooms. It is also possible to use the space as an apartment.

The preliminary design from 1983 depicts a corner solution — if there really is such a thing as a solution in architecture. There were no alcoves nor turrets on the roof, no context of proportions, materials or colors, but instead, a visualized line of energy which, coming from the street, spanned the project, thus breaking the existing roof and thereby opening it. This space-creating taut arc – an element of Coop Himmelb(l)au’s architecture that has progressively been gaining importance since 1980 – is both the steel backbone of the project and its posture. The open, glazed surfaces and the closed, folded or linear surfaces of the outer shell control the light and allow or restrict the view. Both the views from outside and from within define the complexity of the spatial relationships. The differentiated and differentiating constructional system, which is a cross between a bridge and an airplane, translates the spatial energy into constructional reality. The planning and construction work took one year each and were completed on December 23rd, 1988.