Michael Meier und Marius Hug Architekten

Description

The city of Baden owes its name to the hot springs situated at a sharp bend in the Limmat River. The Römerstrasse, named after its Roman builders, leads from the town centre to the industrial area. This is where the company Brown, Boveri & Cie – today’s ABB – was founded in 1891. The founders’ villa and the large industrial site bear witness to the former glamour of the location. Somewhat peripherally, on the wooded hillside facing the Limmat, stand four pavilion-like extension buildings from the 1960s. A competition held in 2010 led to the office complex being converted into 78 condominiums and occupied in 2023. The core of the design is an enfilade of «sotoportegui» – public passageways on the ground floor – which forms the backbone of the four volumes and connects their access. The staircases are now located in the belly of the building and stiffen the structure, which is defined by the efficient use of materials. The theme of the enfilade is continued in the spacious flats, and the structurally necessary interventions in the concrete cassette ceilings also manifest themselves in the form of massive, room-structuring columns and partition walls for the flats. As a contrast, a filigree, apron-like façade with a dynamic ballet of textile marquees winds around the buildings and brings back some of its former glory. Thanks to the preservation of the building structure, the site-specific context of the river area persists as a seamless continuation of a chapter in Baden’s urban development.