Stacked houses- Herzog & de Meuron VitraHaus

Swiss Architects Herzog de Mueron recently opened the VitraHaus on their Virtra "campus" in Germany which features designs by other architects included Tadao Ando, Zaha Haid, and Frank Gehry.  The building features a series of 12 houses stacked on one another with the structure ultimately reaching 5 stories high.   The interiors of houses are connected via winding staircases and some project outward from the whole structure at almost 16 feet, making for an intentionally anarchic display. The function of the house is in fact to display the designers Home Collections, a series of home furnishings in their "archetypal house."

 

(images via designboom.com)

Stacked houses or structures have been used in a number of other designs.  It just seems more structurally sound for each building of a building to line up and create a seamless profile.  However this traditionally makes for one homogeneous building.  In Herzog & de Meuron's design each interior is distinct to allow for the differences in the products each showcases.  In an apartment building, this makes sense too, each  owner can have their own distinct space within the context of a larger building.  Other designs that have incorporated the use of stacked structures include:

1) The Contemporary Art Museum in NYC by Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA  (images via deankaufman.com) or 
2) Another proposed apartment building by Herzog & de Meuron at 56 Leonard St in NYC (image via manhattmuse.com) or
3) xsmall by Chaewon Kim + Beat Schenk of UNI Architects which takes the concept of stacked structures to complete one single home (image via designboom.com) and lastly
4) Habitat 67 in Quebec by architect Moshe Safdie.  Habitat 67 came out of Expo 67, where housing was a large focus.  The design aimed to incorporate the future of overcrowded cities. (image via expo67.ncf.ca)