Hanne and Greta are walking through the woods. When they reach an opening they suddenly see a futuristic block in front of them. "A magic die!" shouts Hanne. "Or a strange mobile home ", says Greta. Then their social pedagogue lets them in on the secret: "That's our new home!"
Next summer, together with five social pedagogues, thirteen girls aged between three and 18 will move from their old domicile in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg to a new home offering sheltered accommodation. In the new building, construction of which is just beginning, they will have twice as much space as previously.
The monolith is the design of the Berlin architect Jürgen Mayer H., whom the German magazine "Der Spiegel" recently described as "a rebel and the great white hope" of the German architecture scene. The relief-like facade of the compact is two-colored and surrounds the corpus like a highly stylized branches. Spread over 490 square meters of usable space, the two storeys plus roof and basement accommodate a living room, a kitchen, a sports and music room, a tuition room, as well as rooms for carers and small children. All the girls have their own room.
However, it is not only the building itself that is unusual. The developer is a foundation called "Unternehmer helfen Kindern" (entrepreneurs help children), which bought the land for the most part with private donations. For a total of € 1.2 million it is making the building available to the operator organization, "Städtischer Landesbetrieb Erziehung und Berufsbildung" (LEB), a municipal authority providing upbringing and vocational education in the country. Furthermore the foundation intends to plough the annual rental income from LEB back into the project, enabling the financing of education projects and individual sponsorship.
For the future residents that means not only a new home, but also a whole host of new opportunities. This is an exemplary project in terms of social responsibility, one that we can only hold sets a precedent. The commitment demonstrated by the two architects involved - in addition to Jürgen Mayer H.'s studio the Hamburg landscape architects Breimann and Bruun were responsible for designing the grounds - is enormous. The budget was exceeded, as is the case in many prestigious projects. Several manufacturers also provided support in the shape of donations in kind. Home.Haus is the name of the new residence, because it is indeed more than just a building.For further information about the foundation "Unternehmer helfen Kindern"
please call + 49 (0)40 - 300 90 60.