pool Architekten: House Mühlerain - best architects 21

pool Architekten

House Mühlerain

best architects 21

multi-family homes

Place

Meilen, Switzerland

Photos

Ralph Feiner

Description

The two-storey residential building with five rental units and two studio spaces is located on a small knoll on the southern slope of Lake Zurich on a terrain of Nagelfluh conglomerate and sandstone that gently rises away from the hillside. The terrain, rock and tall Scotch pines are at the origin of the design for the elongated building with its stepped height and its oblique position to the hillside. Solid brick walls and ribbed concrete and wooden slab together form the load-bearing framework. The access route is embedded into the terrain on the western side of the building. The living areas are reached via generous verandas on the ground floor. On the front, open staircases, inserted into the structure, which are protected from the elements, lead to the upper floor. The apartments are conceived as sequences of rooms with different heights. The kitchen forms the centrepiece. Each apartment has a wide, projecting veranda. Due to the many different sightlines, the situation and character of the location that is so defined by Nature can be experienced everywhere. Living spaces along the terrain on the ground floor are offset from one another at different levels. Great attention was paid to the choice of materials. The façades on the garden side are clad with spruce boards and painted with a reddish oil-based paint. The brick walls on the front are rendered with a lime mortar reminiscent of tree bark. The entire building almost exclusively uses natural and environmentally sustainable materials – some elements are even made of wood from local trees.