Workplace · Munich, Germany · 2022

Linden Court

An office that gives the city a courtyard.

Overview

Linden Court turns a city block inside out. Its offices wrap a courtyard planted with twelve linden trees, open to the public from dawn to dusk.

The floors are shallow enough for daylight to reach every desk. At night, the warm glow of the upper floors marks the building across the city.

Gallery

Two images. Select any one to see it full screen.

Drawings

Plan, section and elevation, from the lobby to the café, each drawn to scale on the structural grid.

The ground floor, set out on a 6 × 5 m structural grid.36 × 20 m · 5 rooms · 720 m² ground floor

Materials

Three materials, chosen at the source and left to age. Nothing is painted to look like something else.

Low-iron Glass
Without the green cast of ordinary glass, so the landscape reads true from edge to edge.
Fair-faced Concrete
Cast once, in timber formwork we draw ourselves. The tie holes stay: they are how you read the pour.
Charred Oak
Scorched the old Japanese way, oiled, then left alone. The char is the weatherproofing, and it deepens with every winter.