2024

Anstatt einer neuen Sporthalle soll für den Turnverein Füllinsdorf bei Basel eine Logistik- und Lagerhalle umgebaut werden. Das Projekt soll eine Schnittstelle zwischen dem Sportverein als gesellschaftsbildender Institution und der Rheinstrasse als öffentlichem Raum bilden und so zur Entwicklung der Region beitragen. Das Gebäude wird entsprechend den verschiedenen Nutzungen in klimatische Zonen aufgeteilt: Räume mit erhöhtem Wärmebedarf, solche, die mit einer tieferen Raumtemperatur betrieben werden können und solche, die gekühlt werden müssen. So werden die Umkleiden mit Warmwasserspeichern durch solarthermische Anlagen beheizt. Zur Dämmung wird eine leichte, textile Hülle auf einer Holzständerkonstruktion eingeführt. Eine Pelletheizung erbringt die fehlende Heizleistung mithilfe einer Verdrängungslüftung, wenn solare und interne Einträge nicht vollständig für die Erwärmung des Gebäudes aufkommen können.

The rapidly growing settlement area in the Limmat Valley is increasingly coming into conflict with existing infrastructure, logistics and agriculture areas. Hybrid programmes can be used to generate higher density and synergies. The large area of Spreitenbach’s SBB marshalling yard is an area of considerable potential to introduce renewable energy on an existing infrastructure and to supplement it with further programmes. The marshalling yard will be expanded to include a solar and biogas power plant. Parabolic mirrors concentrate the direct solar radiation on a single point, generating process heat for the nearby industry and supporting its decarbonisation. The exposed location of the railway station allows algae to be cultivated in photobioreactors, which quickly produce large quantities of biomass. This biomass can be converted into biogas and then into electricity and process heat. Parts of the site can be transformed into a landscape park, characterised by microclimate-specific vegetation.

The textile industry has left an indelible mark on the village of Ennenda in Glarus. It’s architecture and facades stand as testament to a bygone era, embodying both industrial prowess and wealth. Based on a palimpsest produced in the research phase of the project, the proposed Anna Göldi museum expansion captures the layers of Ennenda’s history in an exhibition of its facades. As a ghostly presence, these set pieces shift between being a backdrop for dynamic projections and standing as delicate shadows that evoke the essence of Ennenda’s past. A significant part of this work involved discovering how to create the set pieces. The premise was to use a regular timber frame, suspended between floor and ceiling, and enveloped by a transparent textile, referred to as the «ghost» of the facade. The wooden substructures are covered with fabric, cut according to patterns, and then reinforced with resin to form solid shells.

Hosting up to 4000 people, Camping Gampelen at Lake Neuchatel is one of Switzerland’s largest campsites. However, due to its location in a flood danger zone and its impact on the Grande Cariçaie nature reserve, a crucial area for a quarter of Switzerland’s flora and fauna, it will have to close by the end of 2024. The Jetty Shelter reverts to camping's original concept as a temporary, recreational activity, addressing current environmental challenges. It frees the ground and centralizes camping spots on a linear, elevated structure, functioning as a jetty stretching from the forest through meadows and reed belts up to the lake. This design allows people to experience nature without damaging it. Inspired by local historical «Palafitte» houses on stilts, the structure is resilient against floods and wetland conditions. In summer, like a butterfly spreading its wings, the shelter opens its lateral walls, creating platforms for sleeping and living close to nature. In autumn, the shelter closes its wings, transforming into an introverted birdwatching structure.

In one hour, the sun pours more energy on the earth’s surface than the entire world consumes in a year. Being that the sun is a sustainable, renewable, and inexhaustible source for harnessing energy, not using it seems almost counterintuitive. Switzerland’s total energy consumption equaled 794720 TJ in 2022. This is more than eight times the amount from only 70 years ago. Today’s building materials as well as building technology can remedy almost any climatic deficiency. Yet the resources consumed in ‘managing’ our indoor environment are, ironically, one of the most significant causes of outdoor environmental change. Solar architecture isn’t something new, it appeared and disappeared, succeeded and failed and fell in and out of modernity’s discourse according to waves of scarcity and crisis. Heliocentric architecture means the promise of our profession to contribute to environmental problems: not merely to render buildings more energy-efficient but to restructure forms of human engagement. It is about sharing territories of energy and form follows the sun. About everyday technology and a solar choreography. About climatic landscapes rather than sealed off interiors. About experiencing energetic systems and new ways of living. From the single entity to networks of energy, from triple glazing to the gentle breeze, from constant climate to changing atmospheres. From Solar to Polar to....

In summer 2023, the European Commission announced the biggest single real estate operation in the history of Brussels: to sell 50% of its buildings. In order to achieve the goal for climate neutrality by 2030, the EC is in fact abandoning their allegedly «underperforming» building stock, bundled in one portfolio of 350.000 m². Ode to Joy proposes an alternative to the commercialization of institutional space by implementing a leasehold system for the sales process: The state gets to keep the land while dwellers will own their homes just the EC will own its offices. The plotting of commercial against social function is turned around. Focusing on îlot 130, a building block at the intersection of the residential and institutional axis of the European quarter, the programme combines the offices of the institution with dwellings and the Brussels Centre for Urban Studies. Office space is reduced to 50%, creating over 30% housing, most of which is far below market price.

Ein Gebäude als Teil der Landschaft des Irchelparkes. Ein Spiel zwischen Masse und Leichtigkeit. Ein massiver Rohbau entsteht aus lokalen, rein natürlichen Materialien aus der direkten Umgebung des Strickhofs. Durch einen Aushub vor Ort können bis zu 100% des nötigen Baumaterials für Stampflehm und das Steinfundament gewonnen werden. Die Umgebung wird als Weiterführung des Irchelparkes modelliert und schafft so neue Lebensräume für Flora und Fauna. Das Konstruktionsholz stammt aus dem angrenzenden Zürichberg-Wald. Dächer der lokalen Gewächshäuser werden wiederverwendet und falten sich als leichtes Dach, schützend über den Rohbau. Das Gebäude wird auch als Materiallager verstanden. Es ist nicht dauerhaft. Am Ende seiner Lebensdauer können die Elemente der hochwertigen Hülle aus Stahl und Glas wiederverwendet werden, während der natürliche Rohbau aus Stein, Erde und Holz wieder Teil der Landschaft wird.

At the corner of Limmatstrasse and Sihlquai, at the beginning of Zurich’s Kreis 5, a car parking, a car wash street and petrol station – originally intended to be only provisional – need to be adapted to current and future needs. The project proposes to rearrange the modular structure and add new components to create a place for housing. By interweaving the structure into the existing building fabric, the car infrastructure is kept as a layer of the site’s palimpsest. A crane at the center of the perimeter redistributes the components to adapt the existing building’s fabric and to create building volumes suited for dwelling. In this process each existing mushroom column is equipped with a plinth to reach a floor height suited for housing. Further elements, such as a facade, stairs and service cores, are added, working with plug-on and plug-in components. Thus, the initial circular idea of the car parking structure remains preserved for a new era.

Les vestiges de l’ère industrielle constituent une matière première louable pour la production de logements collectifs comme alternative à l’étalement urbain. Se heurtant à des emprises très épaisses (souvent bien au-delà de 16 mètres), un tel exercice reconsidère à la hausse la profondeur domestique usuelle. L’énoncé théorique, le jeu de la profondeur, explorait l’état limite du standard et offrait des outils projectuels pour l’appréhender. A la frontière franco-suisse, le village jurassien de Boncourt est orphelin de l’industrie lui ayant valu deux siècles de prospérité suite à la délocalisation du cigarettier British American Tobacco. L’Entrepôt pour Tabac d’Orient livré par les architectes bâlois Suter & Suter (1965) se développe brutalement au cœur du tissu en une barre d’environ 200 par 27 mètres qui borde l’Allaine. Le projet reconnaît les qualités constructives de l’ensemble et conserve son intégrité structurelle tout en perçant les zones les moins sollicitées. L’édifice forme une nouvelle pièce urbaine et établit une porosité avec son contexte en accueillant une mixité de programmes publics qui dynamisent le lieu. En particulier, un bain public est finement inséré entre les fondations. Une ruelle aérienne se développe à ciel ouvert à la manière d’une faille sur toute la longueur de l’entrepôt, respectant sa distribution originale centrée, générant deux nouvelles façades introverties. Une imbrication volumétrique complexe confère une variété typologique dans laquelle chaque logis est traversant et tire pleinement parti de l’orientation est-ouest.

This project questions how to stage movement – and life – in urban space. The project proposes to revitalise the Veveyse torrent by giving it back the unbuilt spaces it used to flow through before industrialisation; by redesigning the branches proper to its morphology, rebuilding the banks that once created different types of relations between water and city, and reopening the Monneresses, two branches that would again serve as urban promenades. The former Veveyse delta is designed as an urban park, capable of supporting different forms of life and connecting different urban tissues. Through a walk from vineyards to lake, the project reinvents the procession that was at the origin of the «Fête des Vignerons» and interprets the idea of Festspiel not only as an event that happens across generations, but as a way of animating everyday stages through movement. The succession of these stages rhythmises the movement along the park and anticipates the steps on the place du Marché, which open onto the water stage and the mountain scene.