The Malakoff Street, in the Clausen district of Luxembourg City, is where STDM was born. It was here that Nico Steinmetz founded the practice in 1989.
Built upon the remains of the Mansfeld Castle, this small cluster of houses forms a singular place where built heritage, archaeology, and everyday life overlap. The traces of the past remain visible and continue to emerge through ongoing archaeological investigations.
The first projects developed on Malakoff Street became the testing ground for an approach that would later inform all of STDM’s work: working with the existing rather than against it; reading constraints as opportunities for design; transforming limited space into a source of invention; placing everyday use at the centre of the project; treating architectural detail as a means of expression; allowing materials and construction systems to speak with honesty; and expanding the perception of space beyond its physical boundaries.
The first intervention was the transformation of No. 8A, combining Nico Steinmetz’s home with the practice’s first studio.
Organized around “The Aquarium,” the central room that structures the house, the project established the identity of both the dwelling and the studio. In 1995, it received the first Luxembourg Architecture Award in the residential category.
As the practice grew, it remained rooted in the same street. In 2000, No. 8 was extended to accommodate the family’s growing needs, while the former garages were converted into an extension of the studio. In 2004, No. 4 was transformed to support the agency’s continued development. The project introduced a shared kitchen and was conceived as a reversible intervention, allowing the house to be easily converted back into a residence in the future.
Further projects followed in the immediate neighbourhood: the conversion of the barn at No. 2 into a home and the construction of a new single-family house at No. 10. Although commissioned independently, these projects shared the same architectural mindset and extended the same line of investigation.
Looking back, Malakoff Street appears less as a series of individual projects than as a continuous architectural undertaking developed over more than fifteen years. Each intervention informed the next. Every transformation enriched a shared body of reflection. This small neighbourhood became STDM’s first laboratory—the place where the foundations of its architectural culture were gradually established.