Egli Rohr Partner: Sanierung Zurmattenstrasse 34 / Solothurn - best architects 14

Egli Rohr Partner

Sanierung Zurmattenstrasse 34 / Solothurn

best architects 14

multi-family homes

Place

Solothurn/Schweiz

Photos

Heinrich Helfenstein

Description

The 1970s high-rise is set in park-like grounds that extend to Bielstrasse. The façade of the existing building with its facing brick and exposed concrete elements showed significant structural and energy deficiencies. The small, unshaded balconies and cramped apartments with three or four small rooms no longer corresponded to market needs, so that more and more flats were being vacated. The new uniform façade with plaster-clad exterior heat insulation together with the building’s redesigned base lend a sleek, elegant, and more physically imposing look to the high-rise. Generously proportioned outdoor spaces have been added. The unheated conservatories with foldaway windows serve as a thermal buffer, windscreen and living room extension in the in-between seasons. The apartments were enhanced through various measures (new bathrooms and kitchens, opening up the kitchen to the living room, enlarging the entrances). The overall appearance of the structure was upgraded by opening up the entrance onto the park as well as applying new lighting and colour schemes to the entrance area and staircase. Thanks to the metamorphosis of the high-rise façade, the colour scheme designed by Jean Pfaff and the apartment modernisation, the complex is now more in step with the times.