Lameygarten

Mannheim, Germany

Photo © Lisa Farkas

Apartment Buildings

Architects: Stefan Forster GmbH

Location: R7 48, 40468 Mannheim, Germany
Year: 2021
Client: Baugenossenschaft Spar- und Bauverein 1895 Mannheim eG
Team: Janos Lalik, Ray Moritz, Cristina Naranjo

Originally laid out in the 19th century, Lameygarten is an urban park in the interior of the linear R7 block in the centre of Mannheim. This seven-storey new building, in the previously undeveloped southwest corner of the park, continues the block edge along the street and thus marks the entrance to the park; towards the inside it replaces a two-storey linear building and forms a clear border to the green space. With six storeys and a recessed top floor, this residential building is oriented towards the new buildings around Lameygarten, while the projecting section extending across the first four upper storeys references the dimensions of the adjacent buildings.

Its distinctive façade of strong red-toned clinker brick is articulated horizontally by means of a brick-on-end course between the windows, and given additional sculptural effect by connecting the window sills via cornices. A ground floor raised by 1.20 metres above the windowed basement level affords privacy to the two ground-floor apartments. The upper storeys contain three apartments per floor up to the fifth storey, above that two per floor; on the recessed top floor is a penthouse. This residential building on Lameygarten completes the housing stock of the local housing cooperative Spar und Bau, for whom Stefan Forster Architekten also completed another project: a building containing the cooperative´s own offices and apartments, on the west side of the same block.