Holiday House on the Rigi / AFGH

Architects: AFGH
Location: Scheidegg, Switzerland
Clients: Andreas Fuhrimann, Gabrielle Hächler, Pius Sidler
Wood planner: Peter Camenzind AG, Gersau
Project year: 2002-2003
Construction year: 2003-2004
Area: 242 sqm
Budget: 580,000 CHF (USD$465,000)
Photographs: Valentin Jeck

Holiday house on the Rigi, Scheidegg. The building was arranged on the periphery of the property so that the distance to the neighbouring houses was as large as posssible and so that the option of constructing another building could be left open. The concrete cellar anchors the building in the sloping terrain and houses the entrance area and the technical servicing, on top of which is the wooden volume of the building which appears something like a ship. This floor juts out to a great extent towards the east so that a covered, protected entrance is created.

The concrete chimney of the open fireplace rises like a mast out of the cellar, and together with a concrete wall forms the bracing backbone behind which the two single-flight staircases connect the 3 storeys. On the ground floor is a large living room spread over two different levels and with different ceiling heights.

The deliberately low area containing the kitchen in fact creates a spatial feeling like that generated in the low parlours in mountain huts. The 5-meter long fixed-glazed panorama window, which frames the breathtaking view like a picture, nevertheless introduces a contemporary modernity. The polygonal plan form makes a differentiated spatial division possible and gives the open fireplace its particular status at the widest spot in the room.