THINK ARCHITECTURE: Glattpark Mitte - best architects 16

THINK ARCHITECTURE

Glattpark Mitte

best architects 16

multi-family homes

Place

Zurich / Switzerland

Photos

Radek Brunecky

Description

The residential and commercial building is located in the middle of the Glattpark urban development and forms the end point of a line of buildings extending to Boulevard Lilienthal. The U-shaped volume occupies nearly the entire site and defines the surrounding streetscape and green areas. Responding to its setting, the building opens out toward the boulevard with an arcade, which at the same time provides access to the semi-public courtyard at its ends. While the commercial spaces are connected to the public street via the arcade, the 110 apartments are all accessed instead through the enclosed courtyard. The strict façade grid of pre-fabricated fair-faced concrete elements precisely echoes the modularity of the floor plan concept inside. The spaces in the grid are alternately filled with glazing in the form of French balconies or expanded metal surfaces with curtain-like folds that evoke the domestic theme.