Back when urban flaneurs still approached buildings from a pedestrian point of view, the facade was seen as the face of a building, informing its identity. Roof design was secondary – though its importance was meant to be rehabilitated by its description as the “fifth facade”. But that perspective has changed, at the latest since the introduction of Google Earth and the spread of camera drones. Now the top view, i.e. the roof, is often the first impression we have of buildings. In this issue, we show far less spectacular examples with one thing in common: they engage in dialogue with historic roofs.
A pellucid shell of wafer-thin glass lies over 39 arches of glulam timber. The lower station of the Nebelhorn cable car by HK Architekten thus becomes an open pergola on the redesigned village square in Oberstdorf.
Sanaa’s expansion to the Art Gallery of New South Wales spans the deep lanes of the city’s freeway and creates open spaces, primarily for contemporary Australian art. The new terraced landscape park forms a visual link between the existing 19th-century building with Jørn Utzon’s opera house.
In Palma de Mallorca’s run-down district of El Terreno, MVRDV and their partner office GRAS Reynés Arquitectos have planned 60 rental apartments for the shoe brand Camper. The seven buildings differ in their rooflines, materials and colours, yet form a single unit.