Haus zur Blume in Switzerland by Marazzi Reinhardt.

Zur Blume is a baroque farmhouse located in a small village in the north of Switzerland. The building forms part of the historical row development that sits along the main street. The space where the barn once stood was left as a void for years. Designed by Marazzi Reinhardt, the new building fills the empty space and extends the main house. As a result, two generous flats, flexible in their use and with different spatial qualities, are created as a new ensemble.

The aim of the extension was to provide spacial features to both apartments: ground level access, two floors, cellars, and filtered and private exterior space. The design objective aimed for both units to profit from the specific qualities of the old and the new building. For this reason, the two apartments share the old and the new construction, overlapping each other through a vertical organisation. The atmospheric and structural qualities developed become tangible – the arched cellar, the baroque living rooms, the generous neutral space of the extension and the mazed gardens.

A shell, made out of lamellas, surrounds the new building completing the facade facing the street. The facade and the roof are both permeable, allowing copious amount of light to enter the interior. Despite the porosity of the new building, the new intervention is clearly readable from the street, referring to the original barn in its volume and materiality. Where possible, the substance of the existing house was restored and transformed.

The extension distinguishes itself from the existing building through its prosaic and economic use of materials. Haus Zur Blume finds its richness in the geometry of the spaces and in the qualities of the natural light captured within the interior.