Tiny Home auf 3 Etagen: Johnny wohnt in einem Turm mitten in Köln | ARD Room Tour

Johnny lives in a tower in the heart of Cologne. In total, he has about 50 square meters of space in his tiny home, spread across three floors. That doesn’t just mean a lot of stair-climbing—the unusual layout also presents him with some challenges when it comes to furnishing and living there. In return, the tower offers him an extraordinary tiny living experience right in the middle of the city. Johnny saw the listing for the studio apartment in the tower online back then. He knew right away: This is my place. With his folding bike in tow, he took the train from Vienna to Cologne for a viewing—and hit it off so well with the landlords right away that they offered him the apartment in the tower. They place a high value on new tenants fitting in well with the neighborhood. That was exactly what Johnny had been looking for after years in Vienna: a neighborhood that’s also a community. He found it in Cologne-Bickendorf. His apartment is 52 square meters and spans three floors. For the biologist with a Ph.D., that means climbing stairs. If his smartwatch is to be believed, he walks the equivalent of about 21 stories a day. His apartment in the tower is also beautifully flooded with light, but that means Johnny has to keep all 21 windows clean. That’s quite a bit of work, because at this height, the tower is more exposed to the elements, and the windows get dirty much faster as a result. But the view down onto the street in the morning is worth it to him. Over time, Johnny has noticed that while he has a good view of the street, no one ever looks up at him. He also really liked that so much wood was used in the small apartment in the tower. Ceiling beams, hardwood floors, window sills, the stairs—everything is made of wood. As a hobby, Johnny also enjoys working with wood and builds the occasional piece for his tiny home. After all, with a floor area of five by five meters, his square kitchen, for example, isn’t designed for off-the-shelf furniture. His first piece of custom-built furniture was therefore an open kitchen shelf, which he screwed to the wall instead of a bulky wall cabinet. He also had to quickly come up with a solution for the kitchen table, since his old table didn’t fit in the small space. Johnny wanted a long table because he enjoys having guests over. But it couldn’t be too deep, so he could still open the cabinet where he keeps his plates. Tricky—but with a friend’s help, he pulled it off. For his woodworking projects, he rented a workshop in the neighborhood where he can let his creativity run wild in his free time. The limited space in his tower also forces Johnny to think carefully about what he buys. Every time he buys something, he asks himself whether he’ll be able to fit it into his small tower apartment. This applies to new shoes, which have to find a spot on his stairs, as well as new mugs, which he stores in his closet. As a result, some pieces of furniture that Johnny could easily fit into his spacious apartment in a historic Vienna building had to be put into storage after he moved into the tower. Among them was a beautiful old desk that, try as he might, he simply couldn’t get up the stairwell to the upper floor of his tower apartment. He had to cut his couch in half to make it fit—but he didn’t want to do that to his old vintage desk. The tower has only one door in total, and that leads to the bathroom. Otherwise, all the rooms are open. No problem for a single person. But Johnny knows that the apartment isn’t meant to be permanent. Sooner or later, his time in the Tiny Tower will come to an end. Until then, it’s the perfect place for Johnny to live. A film by Julia Weber (writer), Max Biermann (camera), Gianluca Nieleck (camera), and Volker Steiger (editing). Produced by sagamedia Film- und Fernsehproduktion GmbH on behalf of SWR. 00:00 Johnny lives in a tower 00:38 Kitchen 04:07 Living room 07:20 Bedroom 08:22 Bathroom 10:15 Balcony 11:17 A green oasis in the heart of Cologne 12:55 Shared sauna for all residents