Open|Closed|Ajar

A housing story of adaptation

Usage: housing
Plot: 594 square meters
Built-up area: n/a
Storeys: 4
Year of construction: 1894

Tenement building with 8 units
Size of flat: 151 square meters
Inhabitants: 4
Number of bedrooms: n/a
Access to public transport: 350 meter (S-Bahn)

For thirty-five years, tenant Frieda has lived in her flat in the late-nineteenth century tenement building in the centre of Hamburg, in very different constellations. The various phases in her life meant that she and her respective flatmates had changing demands regarding her usage of the flat, which was and is expressed in the flexible appropriation of the rooms on the part of the different inhabitants. »Yet how does this adaptability of the living situation emerge? What makes it so special that it does justice to the different life phases and the respective needs of the inhabitants?» These questions guide the researchers Céline Zimmer and Jana Etmann. In the course of the research, they zoom in on the element of the closed and open door. They relate the uses of the overall fourteen inner doors at various points in time to the demands for privacy and common uses of the respective inhabitants and their inherent everyday rhythms. With nearly each room having two doors, these can be used as walls or openings, permanently or temporarily, and enable a flexible handling with the changing demands for uses over time. »We have found new living arrangements over and over again, why shouldn’t this be possible in the future,« asks tenant Frieda.

Etmann/Zimmer/HCU 2019