Private residence near Düsseldorf

This is the first residential building from the offices of Ingenhoven. When designing this house for a family with several children, Ingenhoven came up with formats and details far removed from the clichéd villa motifs or expressive experiments. Instead, the unimposing elegance, slender columns and fine curves are a little reminiscent of the best examples of 1950's architecture. Architect and occupant are keen to point out how environmentally friendly its design is. It exceeds the low-energy standards and uses environmentally compatible building materials for a minimised CO² emission.

Glass architecture is light architecture: the elegance of the design is clearly accentuated when the building is lit up like a lantern. The scenically illuminated landscape then forms a link between both interior and exterior.

It is precisely in living areas that visual comfort is a particularly important criterion for lighting, especially where large glass surfaces turn every unshielded light source into a myriad of irritating reflections at night. Closer to the glass facade, ERCO tracks are integrated flush within the ceiling. Fitted with Parscan spotlights for low-voltage halogen lamps, they accentuate the furniture, objects or other features in the room, again totally without glare. An "intelligent home" bus-system installed throughout the entire building allows programmed light scenes to be 'called up' or luminaire groups to be manually dimmed.

The designers therefore used Lightcast downlights for low-voltage halogen lamps in the ground-floor living and dining areas. Perfectly shielded by their Darklight reflector technology, these luminaires produce defined illuminated zones in the room.

The sleek form of the Parscan spotlights complements the modern living environment. Whether by day or night, tuned lighting accents direct the viewer's gaze, emphasise or reduce contrasts and make surfaces come to life: "tune the light".

The scenic lighting of the natural garden backdrop using Tesis in-ground luminaires combines with the carefully planned lighting of the indoor area to ensure that even after dark the transparency of the architecture is retained.

In addition to Tesis in-ground luminaires, this zone also makes use of Visor floor washlights, as seen here for lighting the steps.

Architect:

Ingenhoven Architekten
Plange Mühle 1
40221 Düsseldorf
www.ingenhovenarchitects.com
info@ingenhovenarchitekten.de

Lighting design:

Tropp Lighting Design, Weilheim

Garden design:

WKM Landschaftsarchitekten, Meerbusch
www.wkm-la.de