Residential comfort despite high noise levels

The scarcity of living space is leading to a design challenge for architects: increasingly, plots are being used that are exposed to high noise levels, on which it is necessary to ensure high quality of living. Sound insulation measures also help achieve higher quality of living in a project in Munich Germering. 

Demand for urban living space continues to grow, and suitable land for building is becoming increasingly scarce in cities. This is especially the case in big cities like Munich. In the city centre, virtually no more in-fill development is possible and empty plots are long gone. Consequently, the surrounding areas are being progressively developed, utilising the infrastructure of the suburbs. Here, there is still building land available, and the transport connections to the city centre are usually well-established. One such place in the Munich catchment area is Germering, a district town directly on the southwestern city limit of the Bavarian state capital. Connected to the Munich S-Bahn and in direct proximity to the motorway, Munich city centre and the airport are just a short journey away. 

At the entrance to Germering, on Landbergerstraße, a new building complex with 130 apartments was built in summer 2020. Directly by the busy main road, a neighbouring commercial district and an S-Bahn line, the firm Robert Meyer und Tobias Karlhuber Architekten was commissioned with creating new living space on behalf of Concept Bau GmbH. „Due to high pressure on the apartment market in the city of Munich, we are increasingly discovering that more plots are being designated for residential use, even though they are not necessarily suitable for this purpose. Our task is to ensure high quality of living, despite the difficult circumstances, with corresponding orientations or layout types,“ explains architect Robert Meyer. This was solved by arranging the building around a courtyard and thoughtfully dividing the apartments. Bathrooms, kitchens, lifts and transit rooms have been placed on the noisy side of the building, while the main living spaces largely face the courtyard. 

Another benefit of the glass elements: they make it easy to open up the outside of the double-skin facade. Thanks to the slender protrusions beyond the facades, this enables residents to create a recessed balcony when the indoor facade is open, which transitions seamlessly into their indoor living space. To do so, the SL 25 slide-and-turn elements are simply pushed aside and turned open by 90 degrees.

The Glücksgefühl project in Germering is a real achievement, not only for its sound-insulating measures, but for its diverse architecture too. Despite the size and graded height of the up to eight-storey-high building, the architecture is very uniform. To achieve this, the floors have been aesthetically paired in twos and rendered in alternating light and dark brick. As a result, the building does not appear too imposing at first glance, and looks as though it only has four floors. On the southern side, the height of the building is staggered down to six then and four floors. This lets plenty of light into the courtyard. Overall, the buildings form a harmonious ensemble that blends optimally into its surroundings. The same neighbourhood, at the edge of the city, is home to a series of eight-story residential blocks, presumably built during the seventies. These already form a distinct boundary of the settlement towards Munich. The new-build makes reference to these buildings and forms the southern boundary of the urban development with a similar height profile.  

“Many aspects had to be agreed during this project, and we are very proud of the successful implementation of the sound insulation and the design. The different architectural styles and the street-side brick facade, which promises great robustness and solidity, blend with the plastered facade of the courtyard, which reflects more cosiness and warmth for the residents. Even the two-storey gradations form a consistent unit. We were able to optimally integrate the stairwells with a landing on a residential floor, creating a facade on which the windows of the stairwells are parallel with those of the apartments. This uniformity particularly impressed me about the project,” says architect Robert Meyer, summarising the Glücksgefühl project.