The residential and office building at Weststrasse 70 in Zurich was built in 1966 and occupies the corner at Birmensdorferstrasse. It has six above-ground stories and three basement levels, is accessed via a circulation core adjoining the courtyard, and has facades with wraparound bands of ribbon windows and spandrels. The internal structure is a skeleton of reinforced concrete. A setback on Weststrasse and a projecting bay on Birmensdorferstrasse give the simple building a distinctive character within the urban space.
The alterations provide for the adaptive reuse of the building. The Karma International gallery has occupied exhibition space at this intersection now for two years. And recently, a Japanese restaurant has opened in the western part of the ground floor. On the floor above is a notary’s office that has been there for years. On the remaining upper floors, we have set up our own offices. The remodeling here primarily entailed the removal of earlier fit-out work.
The top floor is now fitted out with five newly built apartments. In the studios, the position of the main space is dictated by the unit’s location along the outdoor corridor or the facade setback. The two large dwelling units each get a patio – small gardens that we designed with Daniel Ganz – as outdoor space directly on their floor. The living space here explores the archetypal theme of the atrium house with the idea of a floor plan conceived as “landscape” – an interpretation of the plan libre, or free plan.