The tripartite Zollhaus stands beside an area of railway tracks and terminates the district. The ensemble of buildings responds to the cramped situation by swivelling away the middle building and omitting one storey in it.

The three buildings of different sizes are connected by the theme of the façade. To ensure that the Zollhaus can function as the home of a collective way of living places for the community are needed. The differentiation of the programmatic, spatial and atmospheric qualities is linked to the grad-ual transition from public to semi-private and to the individual private realm of each resident. The collective places are connected by a powerful circulation figure.

To ensure the long-term flexibility of this housing experiment the basic structure must allow the building to be changes in the occupation. Consequently, the building is designed as a powerful but natural shell of shelves. The result is a raw and direct aesthetic that is open to appropriation by the users.