Marsen House, Berlin

The new two-story glass addition complements the residential building’s intricate architecture. It creates a sheltered space in the north garden. The glass structure extends in front of the facade, capturing the sun and warmth from the south.  The original garden facade is perceived through the filter of the glass architecture, whose delicate metal grid superimposes itself as a new structure onto the wall behind it, uniting it with the adjacent openings onto the front garden to form a single unit. The moving treetops are reflected in the large glass panes—a projection of nature onto the architecture. This creates an interesting interplay between the offset building volumes—the stone house and the glass architecture—and the strict articulation of both layers. The dynamic image created by reflections and the interplay of light and shadow seems to lay over the facade like a shifting veil, at times making it appear to dissolve.