Residential and business building "Kleiner Ritter" Frankfurt (Germany)

Franken Architekten was the studio in charge of the renovation of an existing building into a residence and studio on Rittergasse in the heart of Alt-Sachsenhausen. Preserving the three-story building as it was, turned out to be prohibitive from the perspectives of economics, construction, and even architectural history. The building’s scale and façade had to integrate themselves successfully within the context, so the architects replicated the form of the existing construction, covering the facade with Sto facade elements while also simplifying it by removing the roof overhangs and tying them together with a stone base.

For the facade, Franken Architekten employed the notion of the afterimage (the effect of staring at an object for a length of time and seeing a blurry version of it after closing one’s eyes). So a fuzzy picture of the demolished building would be produced in the new building. To achieve this, a computer algorithm scanned drawings of the original to create a new drawing of parallel lines and insert a "parametric jitter" each time it crossed the trusses.

The transition from drawing to material reality was seamless since the jittery lines in the 3D facade were milled into the plaster panels using a CNC router. 144 Sto plaster panels were used with patched joints to create a seamless effect so that there were no joints competing with the lines expressing the old building's afterimage. The overall effect of the façade is defined by its monochrome finish, with a subtle textured effect from the afterimage design.