Graber & Steiger Architekten: Seestrasse Apartment Buildings - best architects 13

Graber & Steiger Architekten

Seestrasse Apartment Buildings

best architects 13

multi-family homes

Place

Oberägeri/Switzerland

Photos

Dominique Marc Wehrli

Description

By setting two compact buildings of a similar type along streets leading to the lake, the morphology and rhythm of the place is continued in a natural manner. The resulting conglomerate of existing buildings and new construction loosely encloses a garden courtyard that greatly enriches the residents’ quality of life. The slightly offset arrangement of the volumes creates adequate distances between them and interesting sight lines beyond the courtyard to the streets, lake and landscape. Timber construction was chosen as an efficient and sustainable system that at the same time relates to the local building tradition, which is strikingly represented in the fishermen’s houses nearby and in the shingled buildings in the core zone surrounding the complex. A fine-lined yet robust facade skin of glazed wood shingles provides low-maintenance cladding for the well-insulated timber construction and echoes the atmosphere of the setting. The theme of shingling is further emphasised on the main facades by way of bands that create a surface with deeper relief, while the window configuration on the short facades is more reserved.