giuliani.hönger

Description

The Weidenhof residential and commercial building is the capstone of Rapidplatz square in Dietikon, the centre of the new city district Limmatfeld as defined by Hans Kollhoff in a 2005 master plan. The new building squarely fits its allotted plot, bordered by one straight and two curved streets. With its articulated head-end structure, Weidenhof acts as a counterpart to the building by Adolf Krischanitz. Above the elevated ground floor, which is dedicated to commercial uses, two angled volumes create a varied courtyard that is contained yet has two large openings to the outside. This courtyard permits diagonal views through and out of the apartments and serves as a communal recreation area for residents. Variations in depth across the upper floors allows for the development of different apartment floor plans with similar spatial principles. These display diverse orientations, concentric arrangements and lateral views into living and dining areas, loggias and the remaining rooms. In some, the living-dining area and loggia are angled around a room. The appearance of the housing block is that of a typical city building with a one- or two-storey elevated base level, four above-ground storeys and an attic floor. The base level is divided into individual storefronts by rugged, sand-blasted artificial stone elements and large display windows. The upper floors have finely structured French balcony windows and horizontal cornices in artificial stone. Balustrades and pillars are clad in mineral plaster.