The building ensemble between Steinwiesstrasse and Irisstrasse in Zurich-Hottingen consists of three separate buildings that each has its own contextual reference, thus reflecting the heterogeneous development pattern of the surroundings. The landmarked brick villa is typical for the neighborhood. The studio building, set in the villa’s garden, makes reference in content and form to the early modern experimental houses built on the Zürichberg – such as the Doldertal houses. The apartment building ultimately possesses yet another character.
It seeks a close link to the mighty trees on the edges of the property. Therefore the starting point for the formal development was not established by the surrounding buildings along the street, with their massing and classical formal vocabulary, but was instead research on natural forms and the formal qualities of ruins. Rock formations such as basalt were studied for their structural features and made productive for design.
The plasticity of the building form also pervades the interior. The floor plans build upon polygonal chambers that combine in the area of habitation to form an open spatial figure. The foundation of this figure is a spatial sequence that culminates in each case at the fireplace along the building front.

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The Speich property has a special urban position at the juncture between a district of perimeter blocks and heterogeneous development at Wipkingerplatz, the Hardbrücke bridge and the riverside space, which, in urbanistic terms, called for a Janus-like building. The building responds with an expressive and independent guise, particularly through the formation of a head building on Wipkingerplatz, which reoccupies the place. On the street side, sculptural interlocking counteracts the classical tripartite division of base, midsection and top and enhances the expressiveness of the building form. On the river side, terracing of the garden, configuration of the courtyard elements as a building plinth, and planted balconies and roof terraces establish a thoroughly different character, reminiscent of vertical or hanging gardens. The facade’s ceramic cladding – inspired by the ocher-colored bricks typical of the area – contrasts with and dematerializes the bulk and weight of the built form, depending on how the light reflects off it.
Consistent with the flexibility of use required by the program, the building has been systematically liberated from binding ties to the structure. This includes the skeletal frame of reinforced concrete, the lightweight interior partitions, and suspended ceilings in some places that conceal building services installations that are otherwise exposed. Disposed this way, the living quarters explore the spatial potential of the “plan libre.”

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The Fluntern neighbourhood is characterised by a homogenous urban-planning grain of free-standing buildings in gardens, which have a prestigious appearance and entrances facing the street side. From that initial situation, thirteen compact free-standing buildings were built with a clear street-facing façade. Despite their significantly higher development density, they still pick up on the typology and atmosphere of the existing development.
The expression of repetitive, schematic buildings can be avoided by rotating and reflecting the basically similar buildings. This creates a composition consisting of different volumes that essentially refer to each other organically, with cabinet-like exterior spaces inside the estate. Folded façades adhere to the common lengths and underplay the actual size of the volumes. The result is a formally organising balance between the building volume and the exterior space.
The apartments develop out of the spatial continuum around a central core, with sanitary units and a kitchen that opens out towards the living area. Avoiding corridors creates spacious living areas that can be variably furnished, as well as generous entrance halls. Diverse access and circulation possibilities give the impression of spaciousness despite the limited area.
The buildings’ expression pick up on the homogeneity of the neighbourhood and also give the estate an identity. This continues the existing motifs and atmospheres, concentrating them to create an autonomous expression. Furthermore, the urban planning theme of free-standing individual houses with cabinet-like gardens is reflected upon and refined.

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The Avellana housing complex is located in the core area of Zurich-Schwamendingen, where contiguous, rural structures have survived intact to this day. The project perimeter encompasses a defunct farmstead with a farmhouse and barn combined under one roof. The lion’s share of the property was unbuilt and had been used as a garden. This garden was at the rear, tucked away in a second tier hidden behind old building structures facing the street.
In its massing and in its architectural expression, the project takes the garden as its substantive starting point. The design of the building also addresses the two different sides of the space along the brook and the space along the garden, evoking associations with structures that have grown spontaneously. The new building is constructed and clad entirely in wood.
The floor plans of the apartments share a common structure, but each has a different configuration. The form-giving follows a situationally determined spatial concept that adheres to an open and informal character.

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The cooperative residential district of Am Katzenbach is traversed lengthwise by two streets and thus divided urbanistically into three distinct bands. Whereas the buildings of phases I and II were positioned to offer visual connections perpendicular to the district streets, the buildings of phase III are more freely placed within private yards as a result of the pattern of comparatively small plots.
The residential buildings of phases IV and V ultimately form an urban edge to Katzenbach Park in the north. They consist of a series of stereometrically related forms that adapt to the varying plot depths and take their shape in response to internal spatial needs and conditions. Inside the apartments, the residential spatial figures develop from these polygonal exterior shapes, the corner loggias, and the rectangular rooms. The corner loggias face south and also establish a relationship to the park.
From the street, multiple views into the park are afforded through the buildings, variously opening and closing in the perception of passers-by. With their dark facade cladding of red-brown glazed ceramic tiles, the buildings stand out from the park’s greenery.

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The Seebach district has its roots in the ideas of the garden city. The replacement buildings for the Am Katzenbach residential development, in turn, builds upon those roots. The five buildings are only three stories each, have compact footprints, and seek a continuation of the existing development pattern. Their slightly angled facades break up the dimensions of the building forms and, in their dimensions, approach those of the surrounding single-family homes and townhouses. Continuation also pertains to the character of the outdoor spaces, which relate to the “garden carpet” of surrounding lots and can be used privately.
Thanks to the disposition of the apartments and the way the facades are developed, the dwelling units each have two or even three exposures. The spatial organization of the apartments averts corridors and creates large living spaces. The non-orthogonal floor plan geometries produce an exciting, flowing spatiality that is divided by the closed room volumes into entry, kitchen, and living area.
The buildings are clad with a rear-ventilated corrugated metal facade coated in off-white. The relief of the facade skin produces soft patterns of light and shadows that, in their diffuse nature, appear akin to the surrounding vegetation. The projecting round balconies are integrated into the building volume as extensions of the spandrel bands. At the ground floor, the slab on grade and the exposed concrete base establish a transition from the house to the garden. Three base reliefs by the artist Christian Hörler have as their theme the representation of the garden of paradise.

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This project involves a century-old utilitarian building that needed to be renovated and modified for a new use. In addition to being located in the heart of Männedorf and listed as worthy of heritage protection, it is distinctive because of the way it has evolved over time: the building has been added onto repeatedly, yielding an interesting structure of timber and masonry sections with split-level-like offsets between the floors.
The conversion entailed replacing and modifying the entire wood structure to meet the needs of the new residential use. For example: a new dormer element allows the living space to become a loggia when the windows are opened, thus compensating for the lack of outdoor space. The new wood structure is innovative in its synthesis of traditional carpentry work (beams) and contemporary wood construction (panels) into a unified structural and spatial form.
The exterior palette of materials, with light gray wood stain, lime plaster, sandstone walls, and gray painted windows and doors, embodies an ambivalence between “memory” and “improvement”: the monochrome coloration expresses the new use, while the tangible physicality of the materials, such as the rough sawn boarding and the unpainted plaster, is evocative of the building’s original utilitarian purpose.

The Brüggliäcker Housing Estate is located in the area between Oerlikon and Schwamendingen where a small-scale district of single-family homes meets the housing rows of Albert Steiner’s garden city. The three-story buildings adopt the height of their neighbors, and their staggered outdoor spaces interweave the new buildings with the green space of the surroundings. The full dimensions of the buildings’ overall figure cannot be grasped from any one position, helping to create a scale and intimacy appropriate to the neighborhood.
The apartment layouts are developed from alternating relationships to the exterior. With their open-plan living and dining rooms, the elongated apartments stretch between the two garden spaces and have exposures on at least two – or in the case of the end units, three – sides. Continuous outdoor rooms set in front of the east and west facades heighten the porosity between indoor and outdoor space. The usable floor area of the apartments is determined to a minimal degree, thus enabling a variety of living situations.

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The new building has a workshop, storeroom, garage, and office for a small nursery and also offers living space for the gardener’s family. The building’s outward appearance is an expression of its functional character and is reminiscent of rural archetypes from the surroundings as well as anonymous commercial buildings from the 1950s. The primacy of the functional building was “liberating” for the design of the dwelling, since there are no traditional models or defining typologies for this type of housing. The extremely tight budget also spoke for the selected concept, because a “raw” expression with emphasis on materials seemed difficult to reconcile with the common ideal of a single-family house.
The commercial spaces of the nursery face the street, while the habitable spaces open out toward the garden. The building is organized on a single story, thus transforming the familiar hierarchical relationship between representative residence and subordinate commercial annex and also responding to the requirements of the townscape protection zone. The only exception to this simple massing is a roof projection where living and working overlap, lending a certain expressiveness to the three-dimensional form.
The load-bearing structure consists of steel frames that span between the exterior walls to form a large, hall-like interior. The steel, which remains visible inside the building, is braced by attached roof and wall elements made of wood, which also unite all the load-bearing parts into a hybrid structure. The roof and facade were mainly clad with natural-finish fiber cement panels (Eternit), thereby creating an affinity between the house and the local buildings from the 1950s.
The interior, non-bearing walls create a spatial structure that, to the greatest extent possible, echoes the load-bearing structure with a series of parallel, equally sized and thus universal spaces. A hallway and connecting doors along the facade enable the “industrial shed” to remain manifest even in the final layout. They produce a flexible dwelling form in which many paths and options for using the space remain open.