Wümmehof Houses / Felix Brinkhege

The historic country house and gardens Wümmehof in Bremen used to for 50 years be the home to the grandson of the last German emperor and head of the house of Prussian kings after the family stepped down from the throne. Due to the latter as well as the fact that the main house was originally designed by the early Fritz Schumacher and landscaped by Friedrich Gildemeister (both prominent architectural figures of 1930’s Germany) the building and parts of its grounds were Grade A listed by the city. Additionally, its location in a flooding zone adjacent to the tidal river Wümme – which seasonally expands its size a hundredfold – made it particularly difficult to plan and execute the brief to transform the place into a communal living project of seven about equally large units.