Description

Access:

Combination of interior stairwells providing access to two units per floor and external access gallery with maisonette units on the top floor.

Interior:

The situation on the street and on the river results in two fundamentally different types of apartment and access systems. Along the street side, glazed external access galleries protect the apartments from traffic noise. Behind them lie compact two-room or maisonette apartments, several of which have internal access to an atelier space on the ground floor. The leg of the building facing the river emphasizes the orientation of the apartments toward two attractive prospects. The living room and kitchen/dining room are located on opposite ends of a flowing Z-shaped space that stretches between the facades; the fulcrum of the floor plan is a large eat-in kitchen with a view of the Sihl River.

Exterior:

Spatially differentiated balcony stratum on the courtyard side; private gardens on the ground floor.

Morphology:

The generous courtyard space is the heart of the complex and reflects the ambiguity of the space at the intersection between city and rural suburb: it is completely open to the neighborhood and merges with the outskirts of the suburban development. The facade of the building, with its horizontal articulation, is reminiscent of the office buildings in the commercial zone. The travertine bands run around the entire building and taper off on the courtyard side into a filigreed balcony stratum.

 

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Originally published in: Peter Ebner, Eva Herrmann, Roman Höllbacher, Markus Kuntscher, Ulrike Wietzorrek, Typology +: Innovative Residential Architecture, Birkhäuser, 2009.