In 2010 the City of Hannover developed the “City 2020+” concept for unused sites in the inner city. One of these sites is Klagesmarkt, which before restructuring was used for years as a car park and for a weekly market. To overcome the separation between the adjacent Körnerviertel and Nikolaiviertel districts, and to create urgently needed housing, a block structure of six different building volumes is planned for the southeast part of the Klagesmarkt site.

In this context Stefan Forster Architekten has designed two residential buildings with retail units on the northeast and the southwest sides of the block. The two buildings, on opposite sides of the courtyard, each have a symmetrical façade design with red- and orange-toned clinker bricks laid in a relief pattern. The entrances and the stairwells are slightly recessed in the central axis, emphasising the individual character of each building within the development.

At first sight they represent the typology of a city building on an urban plot, underlined on the north side by a mixed use with two smaller retail units on the ground floor, and on the south side by parterre apartments. Pale-coloured cornices of cast stone accentuate the levels in the buildings and, in the case of the ground-floor retail units, frame the shop windows, traditionally interpreted with a low parapet.

In the inner courtyard, which is at parterre level, the façades have a pale-coloured render. The space in this courtyard is structured to offer a range of private and communal areas for different functions; all the residents of the six buildings in the block have access to these spaces. The building on the north side contains independently financed rental apartments on the four storeys above the shops, while the building on the south side contains apartments intended for social housing tenants.