Fischer Architekten AG

On the site of the former Keller AG Ziegeleien (brickworks) on the outskirts of the city of Winterthur a new district made up of four plots is being created. Plot 1 forms the start with a sizable, sculpturally modelled brick volume. It offers a richly differentiated range of spaces including ground floor retail areas that can be used in a variety of ways, with a wide spectrum of spaces for living and working on the upper floors.
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At the entrance to the Dättnautal valley, an idyllic settlement and landscape area with a wealth of flora and fauna, from 1910 onwards Keller AG Ziegeleien developed into a protagonist that shaped the nature of the place through the processes of mining clay and producing bricks. In the 1970s production ended, leaving behind artefacts of unusual dimensions and character. After a major fire in 2015 that destroyed the most striking parts of the complex down to their foundations, it was decided to create a new district on the site that would give the place back a piece of its lost identity.

Fischer Architekten together with Graber Pulver Architekten and Krebs Herde Landschaftsarchitekten used the first project phase to work on a feasibility study for the new development of the site. With the focus on establishing a “green infrastructure”, in taking account of the unique, authentic quality of the existing landscape, a number of its elements such as water courses, woodland clearings and connecting paths were incorporated and were visually and functionally connected with each other across the site.

In what could be described as the empty areas of this formal and informal network four plots in all were made, which will be developed differently in accordance with their position and intended function. Building plot 1, which Fischer Architekten developed further in the subsequent phase of the project, forms the start for this site.