“Da macht ein Architekt – vielleicht sogar nach dem goldenen Schnitt – ein Haus, gestaltet das so richtig schön, und dann wächst da so eine Pflanze davor – ein Baum – und verdeckt das alles. Hinreißend. Der kümmert sich nicht um den goldenen Schnitt, den hat er in sich…” Junklewitz, Dirk: Biotope City.
Chapter 1: The Existing: (Lebensraum Rütiwiese). complexity within the golden ratio.
Once inside the estate, it can hardly be experienced in its entirety; The Siedlung is dissolved into a sequence of individual, enclosed spaces that merge into one another. The interweaving of interior and exterior space involves a sensitive interplay of inti- macy and social life. Private, semi-public and public zones touch and overlap, collide and coexist. The buildings blend into the topography and vegetation of the landscape. But behind the distinctive play is a system, namely the Modulor. And the first step was to better understand it. Between photographs, drawings, point clouds, annotations, reviewing the plans in the architect’s office and visiting Pia and Björn, slowly but surely, a sequence of impressions became a first image that was to be recorded in the atlas.
Chapter 2: An empty middle. or from the Spielhalle to the Spielfuge.
A central pedestrian street forms the connection and runs horizontally to the slope. It bridges the various building phases, crosses the terraced houses and ends in a loop at the woodland. Within the playfulness of construction phases two and three, however, the centre remains surprisingly empty. It was here that two terraced houses and two detached apartment blocks were built as the first construction phase for the Adliswil mechanical silk weaving mill. In continuity with the development of the estate, where new ideas have been added with each construction phase, a playful attempt is made to build on the existing building fabric of the first phase and connect it in a progression to the rest of the Siedlung. But the doubling of residents also necessitates a delicate combination of intimacy and social life, where the attempt to open up the cen- tre into a neighbourhood meeting point becomes a new sequence in the existing choreography of passageways and covered Spielhallen.
Chapter 3: A flat that feels like a house. About living with the seasons.
The typology results from the interlocking with the existing terrace house and an and an exploration of passive energy concepts of the existing archi- tectural elements. In spring, the house awakens from hibernation, the ventilation flaps of the glass house are closed and the doors to the interior are opened so that the heat from the conservatory is channelled into the house and the structural storage mass is charged. By stacking the flats, the stone storage floor from the upstairs neighbours’ glass house warms one’s own living room. The rainwater is stored in saturated terraces and used to water the plants. These shade the façade and the evap- orative cooling is used to cool the interior spaces. Visually, the flat is directed outwards. The large window areas and the split levels, bring light deep into the flats. Diagonal and angled views create wide, flowing spaces characterised by higher and lower areas, conservatories and terraces. Enabling the inhabitants to be active participants, encouraged to find new ways to occupy the space according to the season.
