Using a 50-year-old brick building as the basis, architects Christine and Torsten Rutsch realized their very personal ideas for a contemporary residential and commercial property in Schwerin.
The path to the front door leads over a refreshingly colorful, varied clinker brick pavement – and if you are not careful, you could easily walk up the wall: Using a 50-year-old brick building as a base, architects Christine and Torsten Rutsch in Schwerin realized their very personal ideas of a contemporary residential and commercial property. And because it is so beautiful, rutsch+rutsch also used the Vandersanden paving bricks from the outdoor area to design the first floor façade of their “BO71 multi-generation house” and even laid the paving in the elevator and as skirting boards.
The upper floors of the “BO71” façade are clad in larch wood, while the architects opted for brick for the first floor. Fully cladding the exterior walls with facing bricks was out of the question for design reasons. However, the façade had to be solid at least at ground level so that any graffiti could be removed more easily in the event of an incident, “which unfortunately happens from time to time in this area,” says Torsten Rutsch, both architect and client of the project. Either way, the use of brick products was a must right from the start of planning, especially as Rutsch had already come to know and appreciate the material in other projects. “We used handmade bricks from the oldest English brickworks for the new construction of exclusive detached houses near Hamburg,” enthuses the architect, “and we didn’t want to do without the beautiful feel and look of fired bricks for our own property either.”
Torsten Rutsch could initially only find “boring buildings” when he set out in 2014 in search of an architectural challenge in the capital of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Rutsch and his wife Christine run the planning office “rutsch+rutsch architektur+szenografie” in the small village of Drieberg, northwest of Schwerin, and now they wanted to relocate from the countryside to the city. “Our idea was to transform an existing building into a sustainably designed residential and commercial property,” reports Rutsch. The architect couple finally found what they were looking for in the Werdervorstadt district, right next to Lake Schwerin. The former municipal utility company administration building, which had been vacant for 20 years, seemed ideally suited to finding a new use as a barrier-free multi-generational house and architects’ office – after all, it was a solid brick building.
All photos: Vandersanden
With their utilization concept, Christine and Torsten Rutsch were finally able to prevail in the public tender for the sale of the former municipal building. In the end, only the solid brick walls of the former office building were to remain. The existing three levels plus a pitched roof wereextendedby a full floor and an attic to create a total floor space of almost 1,300m2, while a new staircase and elevator make it easier to access the 14 newly created residential units. The first floor also offers space for the rutsch+rutsch office and a further commercial unit.
The decision in favor of fired bricks is not least due to the history of the location. The Ziegelsee lake is located right next to Schwerin’s Werdervorstadt district. According to tradition, its name recalls the harbor transshipment of earlier centuries, when large quantities of bricks were delivered by ship as building material. And south of the Ziegelsee, the 118-metre-high tower of Schwerin Cathedral dominates the skyline. The oldest building in the city was erected in the Middle Ages from around 1270 to 1420 and is one of the major works of brick Gothic architecture in northern Germany.
All photos: Vandersanden
However, Christine and Torsten Rutsch did not want the paving of the outdoor areas and the cladding of the first floor façade of their multi-generation house to follow the dark red brick color scheme of historic buildings in the neighborhood, but rather to convey a fresh and varied impression. Suitable products were found in the portfolio of the Vandersanden extrusion plant in Upper Lusatia.
Individual mix of different colors
rutsch+rutsch favored a mixture of several colors and ultimately opted for pavers in the KF52 format (200x100x52mm). The bricks were to have a scraped surface, making the structure and composition of the clay easy to see and feel. The Schwerin architects combined the red “Cortona” variety with the strong orange of “Radeberg”, the bright yellow “Plauen” and the red-blue-mottled “Zittau”. To make processing on the construction site as easy as possible, the clinker bricks were premixed at the factory in a ratio of 1:1:1:1.
All photos: Vandersanden
What followed after delivery to the construction site on Lake Schwerin, however, positively astonished Vandersanden consultant Torsten Klemke. “As always, I had assumed that the clinker bricks would be used to secure an outdoor area,” says Klemke, “until I received a call from a building contractor from Schwerin asking about processing instructions for attaching paving clinkers to the façade.” Even Klemke, a clinker brick specialist with many years of experience, was unable to help. Nevertheless, architect Rutsch quickly solved the puzzle: “Our idea was not to let the paving of the outdoor areas end at the building wall, but to continue seamlessly on the first floor façade with the same STEINs, thus creating a smooth transition.” What was missing, however, were suitable processing instructions – which do not even exist for attaching paving bricks to a wall.
Floor pavers bonded to the façade
Nevertheless, Torsten Klemke quickly came up with a solution. “As the bricks don’t have to bear any static loads in this case and rather serve a visual-aesthetic purpose, the necessary stability is perfectly provided by gluing them to the insulation layer underneath,” says the Vandersanden consultant. “You have to come up with that first,” adds Klemke, “but at the same time, this is also the best proof of the diverse design options that pavers have to offer.”
All photos: Vandersanden
Architect Torsten Rutsch can only confirm this four years after completion of the BO71 project: “The transition of the clinker paving from the floor to the façade has created a beautiful atmosphere that we are delighted with every day,” he says. Rutsch is also completely satisfied with how the once vacant office building on the shores of Lake Schwerin has become a prime example of sustainable construction: with an energy requirement of 14.6 kW/m2, the building’s efficiency is even below the values of the passive house standard. Thanks to a heat pump, triple glazing and a host of other technical features, the residents enjoy ancillary costs of less than 2 euros/m2. On top of this, Christine and Torsten Rutsch were able to contribute to significantly enhancing the Werdervorstadt location with the realization of their design idea. The multi-generation house at Bornhövedstrasse 71, known as BO71 for short, is now a sought-after residential address and a showcase project for sustainable construction far beyond Schwerin – including paving bricks, which not only adorn the floor but also at least part of the façade due to their beauty.
Sustainable production, expertise and innovation in brick production are at the forefront of the Vandersanden family business. Vandersanden offers brick products for the planning and realization of buildings, gardens, parks and road construction. The “Vandersanden family” consists of almost 800 employees in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
With a total of ten production sites for facing bricks, clay pavers, brick slips and insulated façade systems, Vandersanden is the largest family-run brick producer in Europe. Vandersanden produces around 575 million bricks per year for the European market and far beyond. The brick expert is not only the market leader for hand-molded facing bricks in Belgium and Germany, but also for the paving brick segment in the Netherlands. Vandersanden’s entire brick production operates in accordance with the ISO 14001 environmental management standard.
Vandersanden has two brickworks in Germany, in Oberlausitz and in Glückstadt. Jaak Vandersanden founded the traditional Vandersanden brickworks in 1925 in Spouwen (Bilzen), Belgium, not far from the German border. The brick manufacturer’s headquarters are still located there today.












