The “Houses in the park” is a development of six new urban villas built in the middle of Mühlbergpark, a protected park area on a hill in the southeast of the district of Sachsenhausen in Frankfurt. These luxury residences, completed in 2008, stand in the context of the conversion of the former Mühlberg Hospital, which was built originally as a villa by an Offenbach factory owner, but used from 1936 onwards as a hospital by the Diakoniewerk Bethanien. Following its closure in 2004, the hospital building was demolished and replaced by an old people’s home, opened in 2008. In this phase there was a unique opportunity to build 32 high-quality freehold apartments, grouped in six openly spaced buildings, in the west of the site. The park remained, not only in its historic form, but, as part of the process of obtaining planning permission, it was also restored in keeping with its protected status, and has remained open to the public. By using the former hospital car park as the plot for the six new buildings, the entire park was preserved and kept completely car-free. The entrance to the underground car park is now outside the park and is integrated into the perimeter wall. To ensure the villas would blend well into the park, the green spaces around them were not privatised.

The design concept behind these urban villas is as simple as it is effective: Two rows, each with three buildings, are offset against each other, creating spaces between them. This loose grouping of the volumes and the space-defining effect of the perimeter park wall gives rise to an interplay of open and closed spaces, of intimacy and expanse. Further emphasis of this spatial quality comes from the difference in height between the two rows: The row towards the street is three storeys high, the one towards the park has four storeys. With their simple, restrained design and elegant proportions, these apartment buildings, clad with clinker in various shades of brown, are reminiscent of the early villas of Mies van der Rohe, for example the Lange and Esters houses. The spaciousness of the whole complex is continued in the interior in the use of large-format wooden windows, dark stone tiles in the stairwells, high walls and parquet flooring in the two- to five-roomed apartments.

Historic park wall on Hühnerweg with gate to the residental complex

Inner courtyard with private terrace and view towards the west