sloping vines

Situated away from the village, Clavienrossier Architect's house included an adjacent barn and two vast volume to be renewed. The Architects  demolished the entire house only to keep some elements which can easily be reused, the cellars and floors. They have also replaced the double-sided roof  with tinted concrete and created big openings to allow light to penetrate more generously. The various-slopes faces enhance the highly varied game of the shadows throughout the day. Circulation is made along the external wall from room to room with overall views that continue onto the surrounding landscape.

pink panther

Philippe Stuebi notes that:

'the expressive volumetry emerged thanks to the special form of the plot and the requirement of the constructor to place a maximal volume on the plot. With the method of the hollowing out the room program and the sculptural building body became incorporated. The sketch development was a work of lining up the demanded areas to a movement going through the house: stretch, widths, narrowing, grinding out from mass to a coherent sequence of space according to the principle of the enfilade. Each area remains its completely specific character in size and form (conical entry area with clothes and guest wc.,large cubic double-story entrance hall, triangular loggia as color area, double-story inside rounded library which is downstairs three sided glazed, etc.) so that when entering the house various and surprising, only in moving itself the opening space experiences occur. The basement consists of large washing concrete elements (white carrara marble ball with white cement) which are interupted by space-high glazings. The three-sided glazing of the library in the basement ist reflected. Depending upon time of day and lighting conditions you can see the stored books or the reflected garden. The upper floors are implemented in bright lime finish and the glazings in nature-anodized aluminium.'

modern threshold

Located in the Swiss Alpine village of Lumino, just north of Bellinzona, this house stands as a monolithic element complementing the surrounding area with its traditional stone houses, many of which date back centuries. Sitting on the edge of the old village, the house acts as a sort of bastion between the old core and the modern residential expansion. The client expressed the desire for a minimalist aesthetic, both internally and externally. As such, the quality of the spaces in the house would be defined explicitly by the architecture and not by objects placed within it.

Davide Macullo Architects's idea of the ‘minimalist monolith’ was adopted as the conceptual generator of the project and became a principle applied to all elements of the both the functional and construction programme. The double system of vertical connections, one internal and one external, relates all the spaces of the house in a spiral movement and is in a constant play with its new inhabitants’ perception of time and scale. The principle of the house is to protect and guarantee an intimacy and privacy for its inhabitants and also to represent an air of generosity and an opening up to the world.

haute savoie

The Atelier Bardill replaces an old barn in the protected centre of the village Scharans, Switzerland. The local council approved the building permission under the strict condition that the new building would have exactly the same volume as the old barn. Linard Bardill, the client contacted Valerio Olgiati to create him a single space to work in. The Architects realised that this space occupies less than a third of the stipulated volume. The whole project expresses greatness and clearness in contrast to the arbitrary geometry of its external appearance and to the small-scale environment of the village.

ruin outcrop

This house reminds me of a view from Lake Como when I was visiting there a few years back. But, the project I'm writing is not in Italy but in Scaiano, Switzerland. Markus Wespi Jérôme de Meuron have manipulated a house within a historical village to create a simple cube house using natural stones with a flat roof; something usually impossible to get planning permission from a historical site. To add further hardship, the site is only accessible by foot and there isn't a road as well. Internally, the Architects have created various levels connected by several small stairs. Windows and slanting walls have been left untouched to add character to the house.