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ETH Zurich | Architecture

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Curation of the works of ETH Zurich professors.

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Lacaton & Vassal Architectes - House, Cap ferret
Cap Ferret / France
1998

“Exposed to the southeast and long unoccupied, the terrain is one of the last remaining non-built plots on the immediate shoreline of Arcachon Bay.
A stretch of sand dune covered with arbutuses, mimosas and 46 pine trees rises then rapidly descends once more towards the Bay.
How does one preserve the dune and its vegetation, when building round and about means to cut down trees and even to build right on the ground?
To avoid the felling of pine trees and the clearing of the low vegetation of the arbutuses, whose impact, seen from the Bay, is particularly perceptible.
To raise the house above the ground in order to profit from the view.
To exclude the heavy earthworks which are particularly degrading for a ground surface of sand, twelve micro-piles are driven eight to ten meters deep. On top a metal frame, which creeps up between the trees, has been assembled.
The facade on the Bay side is open and glazed; the three others are more closed and intersected with transparent bays.
The height beneath the platform is variable, but always sufficient to permit one to pass under it.
Like the side facades, the underside consists of aluminium panels, creating an artificial sky which, because the undulations are perpendicular to the Bay, reflects its luminosity.
The pine trees are preserved, including those situated within the four walls of the building itself. These trees traverse the house in special holders adapted to their swaying, their growth and their maintenance in a good state of health.
Running along the edge of the beach, the traditional wooden retaining wall has been remade.”
- Lacaton & Vassal Architectes

Photos:
1-2: Lacaton & Vassal
3-9: Philippe Ruault by @ethzarchitecture

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4 years ago

6a architects - Photography Studio for Juergen Teller
North Kensington, London / UK
2016

“[…] Both this natural, elemental emphasis, and re-reading of historical sources, informed the approach to light in the space. Inspired by the play of daylight created in the buildings of John Soane, here it enters through gaps in lateral concrete beams, from skylights overhead, and flows in from the garden spaces. Accessed through glass doors that run the width of the site, there exists no real division between interior and exterior space; nature is never external to the building but runs like a current through each set of permeable boundaries.”
- 6a architects

Photos: Johan Dehlin taken in North Kensington by @ethzarchitecture

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4 years ago

Bearth & Deplazes - House Bula
Mergoscia, Ticino / Switzerland
2013

“The antithesis to a house on a slope: one in a cavern, or better yet: a house in a fortified cavern, which is more of a reinforcement of the steep vineyard, a type of primal architecture or architectural archaeology.
The entrance: an opening in the vineyard’s quarry-stone retaining wall, a stairway to the open terrace—pure outdoor space with a view into the valley of Mergoscia.
Only in the background, at the back of the terrace, the interior of a house set into the mountain; more cavity than building, as the building volume has no façades. Pure interior spaces, cast monolithically from paneled, gray exposed concrete.”
- Bearth & Deplazes

Photos:
Daniela Droz & Tonatiuh Ambrosetti taken in Mergoscia, Switzerland by @ethzarchitecture

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4 years ago

Herzog & de Meuron - Koechlin House
Riehen, Basel / Switzerland
1994

“In contrast to many other of our projects, even after months of planning, we still did not know how the house would look from the outside. We designed everything from the inside out, starting with a courtyard around which the different types of day and night-time living would be organised in spatial layers. These spaces then began to penetrate - vertically and horizontally. The inner courtyard was to be both an interior and an exterior space. Conversely, we wanted to bring the outside space, that is to say the immediate surroundings - the garden with its tall trees and the view of the city in the distance, right into the house. Initially, we did not want a clearly demarcated external enclosure, rather, the aim was to turn the interior space 'inside out'. The complete glazing of the exterior surfaces, which would create open spatial references in more or less every direction, was out of the question because the house also had to convey a certain weight and connection with the soil. Anyone standing in front of the building’s dark and smooth slate-like surface can feel its weight and volume.”
- Herzog & de Meuron

Photos:
1-2: Margherita Spiluttini
3-9: Daisuke Hirabayashi taken in Riehen, Switzerland by @ethzarchitecture

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4 years ago

Annette Gigon / Mike Guyer Architekten - Kirchner Museum Davos
Davos / Switzerland
1992

“The museum is clad with a glass facade consisting of a variety of transparent, matt and polished glass. The glass-cladding plays and works with the clear, brilliant alpine light. Depending on the different functions of the glass - bringing light into the building and ensuring visibility - its finish differs: clear and mirror-smooth in the entrance hall to allow a view of the exterior, matt in the skylights to diffuse the incoming light, and matt and profiled as a translucent facade cladding to cover the thermal insulation on the concrete walls. A layer of recycled glass fragments on the roof replays the usual gravel, showing the last and transitory ‘finish’ of glass.”
- Annette Gigon / Mike Guyer Architekten

Photos:
1,2,4-7: Heinrich Helfenstein
3: Ralph Feiner
8: Stefan Bösch taken in Davos Dorf, Graubunden, Switzerland by @ethzarchitecture

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4 years ago

mateoarquitectura - New Headquarters for the Deutsche Bundesbank in Chemnitz
Chemnitz / Germany
2004

“The project consists in the construction of the new regional Deutsche Bundesbank head office in Chemnitz, formerly Karl Marx Stadt, in a place with a dense and traumatic history. The proposal addresses the issue of permanence and solidity (felt as being necessary for the first time, almost), and also of nature understood in a paleontological way as the petrification and crystalline solidification of organic matter.”
- mateoarquitectura

Photos: Jan Bitter taken in Chemnitz, Germany by @ethzarchitecture

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4 years ago

Meili & Peter Architekten - Swiss School of Engineering for the Wood Industry Bienne
Biel/Bienne / Switzerland
1999

“The rules of joining and connecting, which in traditional wood construction organize the separation of cladding and structure, are lifted: for one, the structure itself appears disproportionate, and for another, the load-bearing structure is reproduced as a form in the cladding. These design-based, structural examinations of the tectonic and physical expressivity of large wooden buildings not only move in a foreign terrain, but also break with the tradition of structural continuity in timber construction.”
- Meili & Peter Architekten

Photos: Georg Aerni taken in Biel/Bienne by @ethzarchitecture

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4 years ago

Peter Märkli - Headquarters Building for Synthes
Zuchwil, Solothurn / Switzerland
2011

“Standing on the outside and looking in, the facade reveals the dual character of the building, both representative, in its imposing horizontality, and industrial, in the expression of its primary structure. The facade contains a large portion of glass, but unlike a mute, sterile curtainwall it has a spatial depth and plasticity that draws people in. Its materials invite touch. This is what architecture is about. Architecture does not equate with function. It has to do with those elements that you perceive directly with your body, and that stir something in your soul.”
-From the book “Peter Märkli, Everything one invents is true”

Photos:
1,9: Caroline Palla
2,8: Atelier für Architekturfotografie
3-7: Alexander Gempeler taken in Zuchwil, Switzerland by @ethzarchitecture

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4 years ago