BOOK:The Urban Villa, Hatje Cantz Publications

Atelier Kempe Thill is an architectural firm that includes Oliver Thill and André Kempe, originally from East Germany who graduated of Dresden University of Technology. The Rotterdam-based Atelier Kempe Thill builds urban villas in cities such as Paris, Antwerp, Zwolle and Bremen. The book “The Urban Villa” by Hatje Cantz Publications features their varied projects, each nationally and even regionally specific, providing a panoramic view of the development of collective housing in Europe today. The projects presented in the 144 pages  and 200 illustrations of the publication are all based on this basic type of structure. However, very distinct interpretations develop from specific national and regional features and their conscious conceptualization. The volume traces the projects by the Ateliers Kempe Thill in their relationship of tension between architectural design and lifeworld-related conditions. Numerous illustrations as well as texts by well-known architects and critics shed light on the buildings and their processes of origin. The catalogue thus provides a panorama of the conditions under which collective housing is currently developing in Europe. Oliver Thill won the Maaskant Prize for Young Architects 2005, and the firm designed the Dutch pavilion for a garden exhibition in Rostock, Germany in 2003 (The Hedge Building), and won design competitions for the renovation of the youth hostel in Prora (East Germany, 2004) and a concert hall in Raiding (Austria, 2005). They have also constructed the HipHouse in Zwolle, a museum building in Veenhuizen, town houses in Amsterdam-Osdorp, terraced houses in Roosendaal, a town hall in Alblasserdam, a housing block in Amsterdam and other projects in European nations.-Dimitris Lempesis