Graber & Steiger Architekten

Description

With the aim of continuing to keep abreast with technical and economic requirements in the future, the G. Baumgarter AG window factory decided to carry out a large-scale extension to their production premises. On the periphery of the small community of Hagendorn, the structural situation only permitted an extension in the bordering and sensitive landscape of the Reuss-Lorze area. In order to find an optimal solution for the interaction of the large-scale building and the landscape, a competition was initiated. This prize-winning project was developed in collaboration with landscapearchitect Stefan Koepfli and realised between 2004 and 2006. Harmony between public and private, ecological and economical requirements, as well between the demands of the countryside and architecture, was achieved through a special integral concept that explores and reinterprets the relationship between nature and culture. Locally typical elements such as hedges, woods and fields were adopted as design-generating phenomena and interpreted in terms of architecture. The outer façade of the area is surrounded by a frame construction planted with indigent wild plants, and the area of field now occupied by the building has been replaced by a meadow on the projecting roof. The hybrid of architecture and landscape thus appears as a geometricised natural element embedded in the field landscape.