Living in a special place above the water is the core element of a unique design brief. This background allows for the design to clearly highlight and emphasize the remarkable potential of the location and the living units. It aims at celebrating the particularities of this privileged urban site. The access to the water houses on jetties which act as barrier-free passages between public and semi-public or private areas opens the free view between the buildings over the river Elbe causing a remarkable change in the urban atmosphere.

The footbridge leads to an open water floor which surrounds the paired buildings’ plinth and hosts partly roofed, high quality open areas. The above situated bridge docks on to both sides of the entrance to the respective building’s access area. The quality achieved by the formal reduction and serenity of the three building pairs represents the overriding design parameter at the core of the plan.