My intervention should maximally “densify” an urban-bourgeois 100-year-old Baden ensemble (architect Hans Loepfe) by terracing the outdoor space with a minimal impact on the protected building substance. The existing green spaces between the rows of houses are upgraded by making the residents commonly use and appreciate them more.

The south-facing hillside estate of 12 private units borders on a huge forest above. Up to the end of last century each unit was shared by 4-5 persons (today inhabited by mostly 2 persons). As a former vineyard the generous, steeply sloping exterior was kept partially terraced. "Living on Terraces" consequently proceeds with the terracing by dry stone walls with local limestone. Shaping the exterior space leads to a more intensive use of the outer areas and adds to a more sustainable and densified use of the interior spaces: Light steel constructions, also in terraced forms, emerge from the stone walls to the added attic apartments, so they can be used with private entrances. More public uses in the basement - which mingle working and living - as well as a more pleasant circulation, including a new irrigation system with reused water in small limestone channels through the terraces and ramps should increase the well-being in the various niches and platforms and open up the whole ensemble to the outside.