Housing Development Hüttengraben

Open Project Competition, 1st Prize 2009

 

The area of the Hüttengraben housing development is marked by its attractive location in a fluid spatial landscape situated on the outer edge of development in Küsnacht. Park-like recreation areas of the Allmend, adjacent to the site, create expansive views and function as a central element in the design proposal.

The geology of the Hüttengraben area involves a shoulder situation resulting from the Linth Glacier, and runs uninterrupted from the Zurich Burghölzli Hill through the Zollikon Terrace down to the Pfannenstil. In Goldbach, the shoulder still retains its original, moor-like glacial landscape dominated by loam sediment, preserved in the form of Lake Rumen and Schüber Pond. It can be assumed that Hüttengraben was also once a moor with wetlands prior to the melioration performed for agriculture.

This project for the new development of the Zurlinden Building Cooperative incorporates a remembrance of the moor landscape and asserts itself into the fluid landscape of the Allmend as a “Moor Island,” imprinting the space with character and identity.

Eight loosely distributed, repeatedly creased building structures lie in the artificially constructed moor landscape like stones, and create an intrinsically exciting exterior space with sparse floodplain vegetation. Due to the free configuration of the building volumes, all apartments benefit from wide views onto the park-like surrounding fields or to the nearby forest.