Aebi & Vincent Architekten
Wohnüberbauung Mühleareal Herbligen
best architects 11
multi-family homes
Place
Herbligen | Schweiz
Studio
Photos
Adrian Scheidegger, Thomas Telley | Bern
Description
Herbligen is an idyllic rural village. Modest farmhouses on the hillside and new buildings are the architectural fabric of the village. The Chise is a characteristic brook that swerves round the bottom of the hill. Between the slope and the creek, the historic windmill faces the plain. On the adjacent ground there was once a huge wooden grain silo. The three new volumes give a strong contemporary accent to the village appearance. Constituting a concentrated closed unit with the mill and the multipurpose room, the group of buildings responds primarily with precision to the given situation; using the existing buildings’ volumes, the three new buildings highlight the edge of the hill and emphasize the stream edges. Their different heights and lengths show a dynamic picture of the whole. Cubic and severe buildings, the entrances and terraces insertions give them, paradoxically, a high plasticity. The ground floor is slightly raised to protect the residents’ privacy. The concrete bases compensate for differences in level. The wooden slat system, which covers the building volume like a transparent veil, is reminiscent of the structure of traditional rural buildings. The slats show the body of the building while protecting the duplex, the terraces and the bathrooms from prying eyes.