Schneider & Schneider Architekten: GastroSocial Tower / Aarau - best architects 17

Schneider & Schneider Architekten

GastroSocial Tower / Aarau

best architects 17

office/administrative buildings

Place

Aarau / Switzerland

Photos

Roger Frei

Description

Not far from the Aarau train station lies the so-called »Torfeld Süd«, a former industrial area that is currently being redeveloped into a residential and service district. Through a mixture of old industrial culture and new construction projects, a full-fledged city district is to emerge, intended to mesh both functionally and spatially with the surrounding Aarau housing structure and the adjacent municipality of Buchs. The tower can be seen from the train station due to its height, making it a landmark and orientation point even beyond the town limits that showcases the new and dynamic urban development there. The polygonal footprint is able to mediate between the different urban spaces that come together at this location: on the one hand, the high-rise fits optimally into its surroundings, and on the other, the narrow building front with the main entrance is elegantly accentuated. Visitors are ushered along the edges of building into the new district. The new tower erected for the pension fund GastroSocial is an important building block for the new direction taken by the »Torfeld Süd« site and kicks off the newly developed Aeschbach district.