Swiss Architecture

Danish architecture practice Schmidt Hammer Lassen revealed the winning design of an international competition for the world’s tallest residential timber building. Located in the Swiss city of Winterthur, the 100-metre tall Rocket&Tigerli tower developed in close corporation with the local Swiss architecture studio Cometti Truffer Hodel echoes the 19th-century industrial architecture of the surrounding area through its facades of dark red and yellow terracotta bricks. The project proposes a variety of residential typologies and amenities that are set to create a vibrant neighbourhood.

Paul Clemence’s capture of Zürich’s MFO Park is an evocative photo series for Archi-photo, demonstrating the juxtaposition between the metal shell of the man-made and the wild nature of the park itself. Vines intertwining themselves upon the skeleton of the structure create an attractive destination, replenishing the brownfield land and replacing it with a renewed and captivating image.

The International Union of Architects (UIA), in partnership with UN-HABITAT, have announced the Regional Finalists of first stage of the UIA 2030 Award. The biennial award, which is in its inaugural edition, honors the work of architects contributing to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and New Urban Agenda through built projects that demonstrate design quality and alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The new biennial event Architekturwoche Basel (AWB) will debut this May as a platform for discussing architecture and urban development through the lens of sustainable construction and the circular economy. The inaugural edition also marks the launch of the first Basel Pavilion, a temporary structure meant to showcase new possibilities for environmentally-friendly building practices. The winning design, “Loggia Basileana”, created by architecture practice isla, is made of reused building components and features a series of modules that form a continuous pedestrian passageway along the train tracks on the Dreispitz site.

Dübendorf, Switzerland is something of hallowed ground for architectural technologists. There, on the shared academic campus of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, public university ETH Zurich has conducted nearly a decade of engineering and construction experimentation at the ever-evolving NEST research building. In August, ETH Zürich unveiled its latest extension of the building, HiLo (short for high performance-low emissions)—a two-story modular addition to the chameleon structure that harnesses medieval building principles and contemporary digital methods to raise the bar for more sustainable applications of concrete.

We love to fill our houses with wonderful creative decoration that brings us pleasure every time we enter a room. It’s these decorative features that transform a house into a home. But for those houses lucky enough to be surrounded by captivating landscapes, why shut out all that natural decoration only to replace it with interior imitations?

Architectural filmographers 9sekunden have collaborated with David Chipperfield architects to create a short film about the extension the Kunsthaus Museum extension in Zurich, Switzerland. The feature shows visitors' journey through the new building, coming across the interactive installation "The Sense of Things" by renowned choreographer William Forsythe. Walking through the architecture, paired with the curiosity of the people entering the space, the film highlights the interplay of culture, urbanity, and the built environment of the city of Zurich.

Architectural photographer Paul Clemence has released a new photoseries of Riken Yamamoto's The Circle project, a mixed use development at the Zurich Airport. The design was a competition entry that asked architects to create a program that offers visitors: Swissness, Surprise, and Connections to the World. Yamamoto's winning design, with its inclined facade and combination of linear and curved outlines, linked the airport to the park physically and visually, creating an architecture that highlights the Swiss identity.

El Garaje by Nomos has been announced as the winner of the 2021 AR House Awards 2021. Selected from a shortlist of 15 global practices, the jury praised the project for how it "rethinks the housing typology as an element to reactivate underused spaces in cities and transform rigid and obsolete infrastructure into lively solutions". House Hamburgö by Manthey Kula and House in Kanazawa by Shota Nakanishi Architects also received highly commended recognition, along with honorable mentions to Beaconsfield house by Simon Pendal Architect, Weekend House by AREA (Architecture Research Athens), and Hlöðuberg artist studio by Studio Bua.

As our world evolves at an unprecedented pace, the challenges that come with it are becoming more and more complex. The questions faced by the cities and networks of our global world, the physical and virtual environments where our evolution takes place, are making architecture more relevant than ever.