Arial front
Cored bricks are held together by stainless steel rods threaded onto shelf angles and steel channels, which are then bolted onto building's reinforced concrete structure. There are also three emergency exit doors, one on each of the bedroom floors.
Before Ester Bruzkus Architekten transformed the top-floor apartment into a cozy home for a Berlin couple, the empty apartment had floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides and exposed concrete walls on the other sides. Rather than create a series of conventional rooms that would close off the sense of openness, a single millwork box was positioned away from the walls to make rooms between it and the existing walls.
An aerial view of the home's site along a wooded bluff in Grays Harbor County, Washington.
Pale bricks were laid diagonally on the floor to "create a clear contrast with the facade, breaking the linearity and strict composition of the latter," say the architects.
