REHOUSING PROJECT BY NAUMANN ARCHITEKTUR (STUTTGART, GERMANY)

The judges were delighted by the clever and efficient thinking that guided the design. This is evident in the playful description of the transformation—from a pigsty (Sausta) to a showroom (Schausta). The dilapidated 1780 structure, having endured damage during the Second World War and pieced back together over time, was originally slated for refurbishment and upgrade to serve as a showroom. However, financial constraints and site limitations near a street prevented a complete overhaul or constructing a new building of the same size.

In line with a common architectural strategy for sensitive ruins, the chosen solution was to create a 'house within a house,' even if the original had housed pigs. The challenge lay in determining how the new and old structures should interact—what should touch what, and how could parts of the new construction provide protection for the old, mirroring how the old walls offered added safeguarding to the new building?

Addressing economic and logistical considerations, the architect placed a timber 'house' mimicking the original building's facade within the stone structure, intentionally avoiding direct contact. Meanwhile, the showroom roof was designed to shield the existing structure. The seemingly arbitrary placement of windows now takes on a fashionable aesthetic, driven by the functional needs of the pigs and/or the farmer rather than a whimsical translation of the ordinary.