façades

In every design we search for room for innovation. Not so easy, particularly when it comes to housing, because basically everything seems to be defined! The kitchen is used for cooking, the bedroom for sleeping, the living room for living and the bathroom for personal hygiene. In the private outside space, on the other hand, there are always gaps. The two-storey balcony is one of these innovations that we are constantly researching and implementing in various forms. The spatial gain for an apartment is huge, the quality of life increases enormously with this generous private exterior space.

We love wood as a building material. Wood is sustainable and contains a wealth of applications. Depending on the way it is processed, it is also haptically interesting and can be left raw, or it can be lacquered or painted. And finally, we appreciate the precision with which wood can be used both in interior design and on façades.

Plaster stands for the outermost layer of a house and its appearance. It has a granular effect and serves as a paint carrier. It changes according to light and shadow. Plaster helps us, usually after a long search and research, to give our buildings their own expression and at the same time to correspond to the place and its surroundings. Our buildings want to be part of the neighbourhood.

Metal as a façade material holds a treasure. The range of uses is almost infinite. This is a great quality, but at the same time a constant challenge to choose the right one from all possibilities - and in the colours we imagine. That is why our studio is overflowing with countless metal façade samples. These testify to our joy in the process of turning an idea into a building whose façade material combines ideally with the architectural idea.

Corrugated façade panels made of fibre cement ("Well (ondulated)-Eternit")

Depending on the incidence of sunlight or lighting conditions, the corrugated sheet façade, made of fibre cement ("Eternit"), changes – and thus its architectural expression. If the corrugated fibre cement panel is even coloured, the initially rather simple material becomes versatile and robust. We are fascinated by it. The Roost housing development bears witness to this fascination and provides the buildings with the lightness we had in mind.

Fifteen years ago we started to intensively deal with the façade materialization for our JAMES housing development in Zurich. After a long search and research we were happy to find glittering, iridescent glass mosaic stones in all colours. We were even happier when we succeeded in convincing the client, the authorities and the cost planner of this unusual materialization. Together with the coloured façades and balcony undersides, the mosaic stones form a unit that is still convincing today.

Backstein- oder Klinkerfassaden faszinieren uns. Einerseits weil diese durch ihre vorgegebenen Masse den Entwurf bestimmen, andererseits weil sie äusserst robust sind und nachhaltig unsere Bauten schützen. Ihre Anwendungsmöglichkeiten sind, auch wenn der Backstein seine eigene Gesetzmässigkeit hat, fast unbeschränkt. Wir schätzen – neben den haptischen Qualitäten – die natürlichen Farbtöne, die das Erscheinungsbild unserer Backsteinbauten bestimmen und prägen.