Balance Uster

Oliver Heckmann

Description

The residential concept “Balance” has been realized on three different sites in the Zurich conurbation and was initially conceived as an answer to the phenomenon of increasingly changing and diverse living situations, as well as the desire of residents to take part in the design process for their own habitat. The basis of the design is a highly flexible floor plan covering an entire floor. Varied use and potential interior divisions were achieved by the precise placement of two spatial elements – a core containing the bathrooms and offering two potential niches for the kitchen unit or storage space and an open closet wall in the private areas. This closet wall defines a hallway on one side, while on the opposite side the individual segments enable the flexible configuration of room constellations and placement of access points. Taken together, they form a generous and divisible entrance area followed by two open living spaces with a zone at the back for individual rooms.

Fully glazed on all sides, each floor is surrounded by a wraparound balcony, meaning the residents can walk around their entire apartment as if it were a single-family home. This balcony deepens toward the southwest to form a wide loggia bay which is split by the vertical access core into two parts to enable the creation of an additional entrance should the floor be divided into two units.

By freely interpreting the spaces through the insertion of new walls to divide rooms or apartments, a variety of floor plan constellations are possible, which can be easily altered. In essence, all individual choices can be taken into account, with the exception of those affecting the load-bearing structure, the building envelope or the access and sanitary cores. In order to guarantee the success of this flexible concept, each floor was sold in its entirety.