Building

The engineer Werner Sobek has built himself a new house entirely of glass, which provides its own electricity and whose forward-looking architecture is already worthy of being compared to the works of Mies van der Rohe.

Werner Sobek can hardly complain of a lack of guests from all over the world. Still, he never tires of initiating visitors into the secrets of his glass house, whose fame already appears to have spread to architecture enthusiasts around the world. The Stuttgart-based engineer has not just built a residence – in doing so, he has pursued his passion of paving the way to an architectural style for the future.

One could unscrew his house, named R 128 (Römerstrasse 128) and cleanly segregate all components for recycling. But the careful assumption is that this won't be happening in a hurry because the conservation authorities would veto it. The house is already regarded as an icon of 20th century architecture, comparable to Mies van der Rohe’s 1929 Barcelona Pavilion or his 1946 Farnsworth House. If architecture means taking shape, construction and residential technology to the highest possible level of sophistication and then to refine it even further, then Sobek’s house is a masterpiece. If construction means creating a functioning, comfortable home, then it is a rigid artefact that is quite unsuitable for day-to-day use.

House without walls

Ten tons of steel was all it took to manufacture the supporting frame, which was prefabricated with machine precision and erected on site. A flight of stairs connects the open-plan spaces on four levels, a glass shield wraps around the cube-shaped building and photovoltaic panels are integrated into the roof. There are no walls and no closed rooms, aside from the two toilets. Furniture is scarce: a yellow set of shelves on the ground floor; a bed, a movable bathtub and a cube with a matte sheen (a wall unit) on the first floor; a group of chairs, a Le Corbusier recliner, a red set of shelves and hi-fi speakers on level two, and a fitted kitchen unit (no upper cupboards due to the lack of walls) and dining table on the upper level. Whose entire furniture could be described in just two sentences?

Werner Sobek, who merged the two renowned chairs of Frei Otto and Jörg Schlaich at the University of Stuttgart into the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK) and is consultant engineer to projects of top-league, internationally renowned architects, did not just consider the static structure of the building.

Most modern technology

The house would provide its own energy and be equipped with the most modern technology available today. Triple-glazing, never before used in residential construction, ensures that the glass house does not become a greenhouse in the summer, despite the complete absence of sun shades. A heat pump system and a 12,000 litre long-term water reservoir balance seasonal temperature shifts, while electricity is generated by 48 solar power modules with a 6.72 kW capacity and an annual surplus of as much as 200 kWh. In winter, however, Sobek has to climb onto the roof to clear the snow off his power station.

Architectural purism

Naturally, every item in the house is computer-controlled and monitored, if required, externally via internet. If Sobek thinks something is useful, it is installed; useful features that don’t yet exist are commissioned. The front door has a voice-recognition feature and opens if called; the doors to the toilets require only a manual signal. Water faucets are switched on and off by sensors while ambient temperature, lighting and windows are controlled via a touchscreen. Of course visitors need instructions to become familiarised with the equipment.

Having dispensed with light switches and door, window and wardrobe handles, curtain rails, skirting boards and the like, Sobek’s architectural purism goes far beyond that of Mies van der Rohe. The philosophy also stretches to Mr and Mrs Sobek's day-to-day lives – there is no room for knick-knacks. Storage space is rare, and in the absence of a cloakroom visitors simply drape their coats over the railing. It is probably a question of getting used to living without all the stuff that tends to accumulate in a house.

Residential lifestyle for the third millennium

If there is one reason why an estimated 95 per cent of people would not feel comfortable in this fascinating house with its grand view of Stuttgart’s city centre, it would be because it does not provide any comfort or intimacy. While no one can see into the house, it is as if one lived outdoors, surrounded by nature, at the mercy of the weather. The moon is a bedfellow, and winter storms appear to sweep through the living room. In the evening it is a pleasure to sit in the bathtub in the dark and watch the city lights.

R 128 sounds like a prototype, and justifiably so. The Sobek family is testing this prototype, empirically piloting a residential lifestyle for the third millennium. It is an ecological show-house, with its incredibly strict minimalism representing an architectural manifest – a house that shows the way, but is not the final destination. The H 16 successor design, the house of an entrepreneur, is to be found in Tieringen in the Swabian Alb mountains; its architecture may be not quite as radical, but is more advanced in terms of technology. R 129, an even more radical UFO-shaped building made entirely of glass, is in the planning process and will drive forward the development.