Michael Meier und Marius Hug Architekten: House on Belt Walk - best architects 23

Michael Meier und Marius Hug Architekten

House on Belt Walk

best architects 23

multi-family homes

Place

Zurich, Switzerland

Photos

Roman Keller

Description

The House on Belt Walk stands on the flank of a moraine hill on the shores of Lake Zurich in Wollishofen, in the direct vicinity of the Bellariarain housing estate. The exposed location on the sloping terrain and the resulting lake views are characteristic features of the new replacement building, which emerged from a competition in 2014 and was completed in 2021. Like the relic of a ski jump, the house nestles against the camber of the Bellariarain and gracefully fans out towards the lake view. The entrance is on the slope side, at ground level. A winding, three-flight staircase leads up through the bipartite building. The almost symmetrically constructed apartments are entered via an entrance hall, which also leads to bedrooms and bathrooms. Following the incidence of light, one enters the spacious, polygonal living and dining area. An open bay-window kitchen, tripartite like the staircase, concludes the flats together with the loggia. The projections and recesses in the silhouette of the house create exciting interior spaces and open up a multi-sided outdoor space for all the flats. Overlapping, room-specific openings and the ribbed metal cladding of the closed areas give the façade a vertical emphasis. Together with the angled segmentation of the façade elements, a playful and slender impression is made that contrasts with the baroque-looking volume.