Single Family House in Riein The new building complements the existing local development structure, continuing its gradation and its typology. The entrance to the new house is slightly recessed on Sumvitg Street, from where the house faces the valley in a south-westerly direction. This, together with the alignment parallel to the hillside and along the plot boundary to the northwest, results in the precise positioning of the building volume. The connection to the road occurs via a small forecourt that can be used on the one hand as a parking space, but above all as an intercommunicative pivot towards the street. On the forward side of the house facing out over the valley a cantilevered ground-floor terrace extends across the entire width of the facade, reinforcing the orientation towards the unique view over the landscape towards the southwest. The residential house, designed for the Lengsfeld family as a holiday and weekend home, is conceived as a two-storey timber construction with a gable-ended roof set in a predefined direction on the ridge perpendicularly to the slope and the street. The house is executed entirely in the form of a wooden element construction. The positioning of the building means that all four sides comply with the firebreak regulations, allowing it to remain externally visible as a timber construction. Facing the street the building consists of two storeys, whereby the entrance next to the slight overhang of the gable roof is sheltered by a recess. Due to the steep gradient of the slope, a type of basement level is formed facing the valley, which in this particular case remains a skeleton construction, its supports simply acting to transmit the load of the two residential stories to the point foundations set in the hillside below. The space beneath the ground floor is unheated and serves to house the heating installation and as a straightforward material storage area for the clients. Similarly the space under the pitched roof, which is planned to be non-usable, is likewise unheated and naturally ventilated, the flat floor of the upper storey forming the insulation puffer. The extensive glazing of the living and dining area on the ground floor, spanning the whole width of the facade to the terrace, is shielded by the slight projection of the upper storey, making the first floor somewhat larger in terms of area than the ground floor. The exterior facades are all fitted with rough-sawn softwood planking, and with time, depending on the direction it faces, the natural colour of the wood will acquire a dark or a silvery hue. The saddle roof is executed as a metal-sheet roof in galvanised corrugated iron fitted with snow guards.

Project: AFGH, Regula Zwicky, Project leader: Regula Zwicky