Single-family home | Malters

Single-family home | Malters

1994 - 1996
in collaboration with Bruno Zurkirchen

Project manager: Daniel Birrer, Dipl. Arch. HTL

Photographer: Nadja Athanasiou, Zurich


The paradoxical task consisted of building a low-energy house at a poorly lit location with a beautiful north-facing view. Legally stipulated design regulations determined the building lines, roof form and materials. The material requirements of a brick façade also created a contradictory underlying situation. The lightweight construction system required for the low-energy house meant transforming the regulation into a back-ventilated brick curtain facade. This also created an interesting connection to the traditional materialisation of the weather-exposed side for farmhouses with tiled roofs. By using the same material for the façade and roof, the volume appears as a single unit. Apertures towards the south are only applied with large dimensions where the incident sunlight makes it sensible. Towards the north, the smaller windows create a visual relationship to the exterior surroundings. The materialisation of the interior is revealed outside, at the entrance and in the loggia, where there is no shielding façade layer.