2015-07-03

Waldspirale, The U-shaped Green Roof Residential Building in Germany

Waldspirale, the residential building complex in Darmstadt, Germany, was built in the 1990s. The name translates into English as forest spiral, reflecting both the general plan of the building and the fact that it has a green roof. It was designed by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, planned and implemented by architect Heinz M. Springmann, and constructed by the Bauverein Darmstadt company. The building was completed in 2000. This green roof complex has 105 apartments and residential and commercial parking for the cafe and bar, the last two being located at the top of the spiral. The inner courtyard contains a playground for the children of the residents and a small artificial lake.

Photo credit: Scott Maurer

The peculiarities of the U-shaped building are to have a single facade, which follows no grid organisation, and misplaced windows, which appear as if out of context, all different and haphazard and often with three trees exiting windows. A diagonal roof, planted with grass, shrubs, flowers and trees, rises like a ramp along the shape of a U. At its highest point, the Waldspirale is 12 floors.

Windows in Waldspirale, of which they have more than a thousand, are all unique — no two windows are equal. Similarly, the knobs and handles on every door and window in each are different. Similarly, different handles are attached in each apartment to the doors and windows. Some of the apartments are decorated in Friedensreich Hundertwasser's personal style and exhibit the colourful tiles in the bath and kitchen that are characteristic of his work. Furthermore, all the corners are rounded off in these apartments along the roof and walls in an application of Hundertwasser's dogma "gegen die gerade Linie", or "against the straight line". For cost reasons, only a few of the apartments' interiors were designed individually. From the outside, the typical elements of Hundertwasser's personal style attract attention:

The gilded onion domes,
The absence of straight lines and sharp corners,
The multicoloured painting of the building in earth tones and the colourful ceramic columns.