The Ostendstraße six-storey apartment block is located on a narrow plot in a quiet street in Frankfurt’s Ostend district. Built in 2008 as an early conversion project on the site of a former petrol station, this block, retrospectively considered, actually presages the boom that was to come in the years that followed. In the immediate neighbourhood the new European Central Bank headquarters was built in 2014, then after that were two residential blocks designed by Stefan Forster Architekten in Windeckstraße (2016) and Sonnemannstraße (2020), these being on the south and west side of the same city block.

The answer to the somewhat incoherent urban situation here during the planning period was a classic urban building – the Ostendstraße block fits sensitively into what remains of the historic block structure, echoing typical elements of late 19th-century townhouses in the mouldings and narrow projecting bays on a classically articulated street façade. Horizontal layering with clinker brick and rendered surfaces in combination with a differentiated height development and deep, rhythmically positioned recesses at roof level give the building a playful association with the architecture of Expressionism. A raised ground floor, the side access to the courtyard and the generous entrance area all give the building identity and help it stand out typologically as an urban townhouse in a perimeter development around a city block.

The back of the building also takes up the typology of the rear wing familiar in old townhouses, opening out to the courtyard with window fronts and broad projecting balconies. There are two apartments on both ground and top floors, with four per floor on all the other storeys. Within this layout, a wide range of different floor plans are possible per apartment. Each apartment has its own open-air space – a loggia, a balcony or terrace – and access to the carefully landscaped garden.