09/03/2013
“Eine Stadt braucht Wandel”
text: Hannes Nussbaumer

Location: Maag Halle Zürich
Curator: BLOFELD Entertainment GmbH
Concept: Tiago Matthes
Date/Period: 2012/10/11 – 2012/10/13

A vertical section through our realised projects from the last 10 years formed the motive of shaping a topographical landscape. A composition of selected projects forms a skyline that was cut out of a monolythic volume. Playing with scale and level of abstraktion enabled us bringing together the wide variety of projects in a chronological manner. Start and end of this timeline is defined by our assignments for renovating the Maag Event Hall. As such the modell reacts on the very context of the exhibition displaying a space in a space.

Adress: Areal Zeitenströmung, Königsbrückerstrasse 96, 01099 Dresden
Client: B&E Vermögensverwaltung GmbH & Co. Grundbesitz KG
Planing and design: spillmann echsle architekten ag
Project Team: Sander Luckers, Simon Zehnder
Construction managment and realization: Alho, Wikon
Civil engeneering: Ingenieur- und SV-Büro Herr Dr. Ralf Adler, Dresden
Housing technology: IB Rathenow BPS GmbH, Dresden
Landscape architecture: bbz Landschaftsarchitekten, Berlin
Construction:2012-2013
Renderings: total real

The former military industrial site just outside the city center of Dresden breaths history. An original hoisting crane, railway tracks and the floor of concrete and cobble stones trace back to its original function as a freight traffic zone. These traces on the one hand link to our contemporary means of transport and mobility, and on the other hand offer a fruitful context for developing an unusual project attracting a young public. The Boarding House Dresden consists of 150 oversea containers vertically stacked together, forming compact building volumes that comprise up to 4 different hotel rooms. The towers allow for sufficient transparency and at the same time ensure a high urban density. A large part of the original pavement is cut away allowing a birch forest to grow over time. The container volumes are loosely placed in the forest creating numerous semi public spaces out in the green. A forest road formed by remnants of the original floor laces all elements together and refers to the omnipresence of history that reveals itself in a palimpsestic way.

Adress: 8005 Zürich
Client: Migros Herdern
Planing and design: spillmann echsle architekten ag
Project Team: Tiago Matthes, Sander Lückers, Harald Echsle
Construction: 2012-2013
Renderings: Christoph Schubiger

we spent the weekend together in Zuoz for some skiing and relaxing

SBB Immobilien Development Region Ost

Adress: 8008 Zürich
Client: Schweizerische Bundesbahnen SBB
Planning and design: spillmann echsle architekten
Project Leader: Harald Echsle, Alexander Janeck
Year: 2011 – 2014
Renderings: Raumgleiter GmbH, Zurich and Yoshi Nagamine, Zurich

Embedded between the Bellerivestrasse and the tracks of the train station Tiefenbrunnen lies the elongated site Tiefenbrunnen. With adding a clear identity to the site the proposed building aimes for bringing the area a revaluation. The building’s discrete shape of volumes patched together refers to the outline of the city. Its structure with high transparency mediates an open character that enables both seeing in, and through the building.

Press:

neue zürcher zeitung
18/04/2012

Schweizer Tierschutz STS Basel

Address: Birchsteg, 8057 Zürich
Client: Private
Planning and design: spillmann echsle architekten ag
Project leader: Guillaume Chapallaz
Construction managment and realization: Jaeger Baumanagment
Civil engeneering: Andreas Haag + Partner GmbH, Diego Zanolla
Housing technology: naef energietechnik, Gerber Patrick Haustechnik GmbH
Construction: 2011-2014
Renderings: total real, Zurich

The building site at the Birchsteg is characterised by the SBB railroad tracks cutting the plot, and by the surrounding traditional row housing in the Birchstrasse. With its massive, polished and slightly deformed appearance the building block reacts on the issue of local sound pollution. A central core -containing staircase, elevator and bathrooms- penetrates the whole building volume defining the adjacent open, split leveled spaces in different zones for living, sleeping and working.

we took a day off and went skiing on the schatzalp

invited competition for the design of a learning centre

Address: 8050 Zurich
Design: spillmann echsle architekten
Year: 2011
Renderings: total real, Zurich

A large multi-national company requires a learning centre. We were invited alongside two other studios to submit a competition entry for its design, in which an existing industrial hall should be transformed into a highly inspiring space for knowledge transfer. As there is a regulation which states that the amount of surface area or footprint of these existing factory buildings is transferable to new buildings – given that existing structures on the site are kept – we decided to add to the top of the existing structures, rather than the inside. In this way, the uniqueness of the industrial complex remains intact.
Our idea consisted of two main concepts: firstly, a network in which there are infinite ways to move through the building. Secondly, the idea of living rooms, places for social interaction, where guests from all around the world feel comfortable and welcomed. We decided to perceive the space for networking as the binding element between the spaces for learning and working and created a highly flexible and adaptive landscape that raises up over 9 floors. Not only the building‘s inside, but also its outside should communicate this idea of a network, and so the exterior of the building is wrapped with cables and energy-generating solar panels. This proposal for the learning factory is simultaneously a reflection on the company‘s history, as well as its vision for the future.

„The exhibition features both very recent projects, produced by the new environmental sensitivity pervading the work of the designers, and more consolidated and even historicised examples, testifying that recycling is a practice deeply-rooted within the artistic and design professions.“