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Architects: Meier Unger
- Area: 105 m²
- Year: 2019
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Photographs:Philip Heckhausen
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Lead Architects: Jan Meier, Lena Unger
Text description provided by the architects. The Stöckli, as it is called in some Swiss regions, finds its origins in the old tradition of the ‘Auszughaus’. Retiring farmers are entitled to this as a home when the farm and all its work are passed on to the next generation.
We met a family who manages their farm with great care, love of their work, and awareness of producing quality products. The Ettershof homestead, equipped with a magnificent farmhouse that stands out confidently and strikingly in the surroundings of the Aare plain, is unique. The farm with its buildings is otherwise surrounded by the fields to be cultivated, giving this place a tranquility rarely found in Switzerland with its agglomerative sprawl in the midlands.
To add a building to this beautiful landscape, without violating its fragile charm, was the task we had to set ourselves. It was self-evident that the new building had to fit respectfully into the landscape and that it had to do justice to the quality of the existing building.
More difficult to conceive of was exactly how the lives of the farmers, who had spent decades working tirelessly from dawn until dusk, were now going to change, to allow them to enjoy the space and their surroundings, without the emphasis on work and to enable them to live differently as they settle into retirement while remaining part of the community.
Therefore, the design of the new building was intended to respond precisely to these changed living conditions. The Stöckli explicitly tries not to be part of the farmyard, the hustle, and the bustle of work. Instead, it is located in the south of the farmstead. Close enough to remain part of the property, but not having to be part of the daily happenings.
While the old farmhouse, with its size and magnificent roof shape, stands iconographically in the landscape, the new building attempts to fit more subtly into the expansive landscape.
Although the old farmhouse holds a distinctiveness through its size and form, it does not make any reference to its surroundings in terms of interior space, except for lighting. These needs were not relevant at the time of construction in 1808. On the contrary, the new building makes the presence of nature, of the landscape, its theme. All rooms in the house are oriented along an enfilade to the south or include this reference point via structural openings.
All windows span from floor to ceiling and allow the surroundings to almost reach up to the house interior. The flowers of the meadow are kept at a comfortable distance only by the arbors, which are paved in patterns. These arbors are covered and supported by oak pillars. On the one hand, the pillars are an important space between the landscape and the interior, and on the other, they create a powerful but unagitated shielding presence to the north and south. The house thus becomes visible even to a distant observer and hiker but keeps a dignified distance from the farmhouse.
