EMI Architekt*innen Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin

Description

The building ensemble on Steinwies-/Irisstraße in Zurich-Hottingen consists of three houses, each relating to the context in its own way, and thus reflects the heterogeneous development of the surrounding neighbourhood. The listed brick villa is typical for the quarter. The studio house set in the villa’s garden relates both in content and form to the experimental houses on the Zürichberg, examples of the Neues Bauen movement in the 1910s to 30s, such as the famous Doldertal houses. Finally, the apartment house has another character again. Formally, it tries less to blend in with the surrounding buildings facing the street and their volumes and classical vocabulary than to emulate natural shapes or ruins, the architecture most closely akin to forms found in nature. The architects thus examined the structural characteristics of rock formations such as basalt and put them to productive use in their design. The plasticity of the building volume continues on into the interior, where the floor plans evolve from polygonal chambers that connect with the living areas to create an open spatial figure. Behind this figure is the theme of passages whose vanishing points culminate in the fireplaces set at the front side of the building.