P2 (panel building)

P2 is the abbreviation for the type of prefabricated housing construction in the GDR. P stands for in parallel, the supporting walls are arranged parallel to the facade surface. And the 2 refers to the arrangement of two stairways in a building. A number after the slash indicates the number of floors. This industrial design enabled the rapid construction of entire residential blocks. She came from 1961 until the end of the GDR in many large cities used.

History

The first house of this type of industrial building was built in 1961 as an experimental building in Berlin- Lichtenberg by an architect collective of the Academy of Architecture of the GDR, which belonged, among others, Achim Felz, Herbert Kuschy and Wilfried hostler. The Gebäudezug located in the Erich Kuttner 9-15 in the district Fennpfuhl and is now a listed building.

During the experimental building still had four different floor plans, was later to simplify the basic principle of a ceiling span of 6 meters. Thus, the bearing house walls were simultaneously apartment dividing walls and inner partitions were variable. In the development of this type of building varying the number of floors. Moreover wedge-shaped layouts that could be inserted in order to permit bending of the wings formed.

Construction

Stairs and arrangement of the apartments

Characteristic of this type is the arrangement of the apartments to an internal, almost square, often provided with a glass roof stairwell. The houses have five to eleven storeys. Each floor, there are usually two apartments, but there are also variations of this type of house with three apartments per floor above and was realized under the staircase access.

Floors

The standard design of the P2 is fünf-/sechsgeschossig, the ground floor is a half-storey from the site stands out. This allows for natural ventilation and exposure of the basement, and the minimization of the excavation in the area at the foundations of the buildings. The development of the building is therefore either via exterior stairs, and / or a half flight of stairs at the entrance. The staircase and its necessary development causes a reduction in area of an apartment on the ground floor. From the symmetric 3 -bedroom apartments on the upper floors, therefore, a 4-room, and a 1 -room apartment was mostly created. The lack of room has been designed as a hallway.

P2 buildings with more than six floors, all three storeys of a distributor gear. This is due to the input side of the building, forming the entrances to stairwells, elevators, garbage chute and closets. The apartments above or below the manifold runners are not directly from the elevator, but in each case via a staircase or on reach - down. Typically, the distributor gears are in the following order:

• P2/10 ( 10-storey ): 1st, 3rd, 6th and 9th floor
• P2/11 ( with 11 bullets ): 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th floor. In the 7th floor there is a same-level evacuation passage, which represents a connection to a neighboring building and serves as an escape.

Apartment types

Standard was equipped with 1 - to 4 -bedroom apartments. For houses with special elements, such as a trapezoid shape, there are also 5-room apartments, where two spaces have no right angles in plan.

On the mezzanine there was no loggias; only in later reconstruction was added to the.

Kitchen and Bath

A novelty were the bathrooms and kitchens of the houses that were inside and basically next to each other so that they could share a common supply channel for water, sewage and vents and therefore space was saved.

The designers gave up a kitchen that requires a long ways and the family spatially separated. In addition, living space, and thus also costs should be saved. The basic idea was to better integrate the woman in the family, because the kitchen was designed open to living room. The man should therefore be encouraged to participate in the household. Life should not play longer on the stove, but in the living room. The kitchens were initially connected by large hatches in the form of built-in furniture to the living room. After massive criticism, the kitchen was not enough separated from the living room, one used later concrete walls with a small hatch window, in the last built apartments of the type, the kitchen was fully separated by a wall from the living room. Daylight, she received only indirectly through the door or just the hatch.

For the first time for the bathrooms fully furnished sanitary compartment cells (toilet, sink, tub, faucets for bathroom and kitchen, washing machine connection, vertical supply and disposal lines ) were used, which were levied on land in the shell. To install only the connection of the pipes at ground level was necessary. The walls of the utility shaft were made ​​of different materials. They range from pressboard over full plaster walls to massive concrete elements.

Specifications

• Finished parts in the load level to 5.0 t
• Basic grid 6 m × 6 m
• Building depth ( standard ) 12 m
• Storey height from 2.60 to 2.80 m
• Number of floors: 5 to 11, with shop and office floors and 14