House with one wall

Architect Christian Kerez Project House with one wall Location Zurich, Switzerland Date 2004 2007

Christian Kerez - House with one wall

Chstian Kerez seeks to create 'projects' by inventing rules and constraints for activities in his day to day lile. In this the architect manages his expectations as the rules serve to generate unexpected, surprising outcomes simultane ously avoiding mediocrity. Kerez gave an example of one of these 'projects' while giving a lecture at Harvard Uni versity in 2012, as the arranging and composition of ftowers, whereby the constraints may be given by the se lection of ftowers available at a given shop or the arrange ment of ftowers of certain, shapes sizes and colours.

Located in the Witikon borough in southwest Zurich, this setting of rules can be seen in the reasoning behind the concept of the house with one wall with the argument that the base requirement in a building which is to serve as two dwellings be a dividing wall. Conventionally this pro vides no interaction or expression in regards to function.

The struggle between this constraint or rule and the design process generales conceptual clarification while simultaneously reducing arbitrariness. The shape of the wall is the reverse in one ftat to the other and so this dual ity cannot accommodate arbitrary form. On the one side convex, on the other concave. The shape provides the structural rigidity reducing the architecture to this one ele ment while providing the necessary alcoves for the only enclosed spaces in the otherwise open plan to create bathrooms. Even here, the geometry of the wall is not in terrupted as the sliding door clases off the alcove.

Fig 2 Entrance

Fig 3 Main Living Space

The services, circulation and structure are all dependan! on the dividing wall as it shifts from ftoor to ftoor, alter ing the proportion in which the two dwellings open to their surroundings va the completely glazed skin. The skin, which not only draws attention to the solidity of the central wall while increasing the sense of space of the long open plan, also contrasts with the manner in which the building is rooted in the landscape va the re cessed, enclosed, and prvate basement/ground ftoor level.

Fig 4 & 5 Context

At first the orientation of the building may seem strange in that the di viding wall does not run north to south as one might expect. Here one of the very few similarities between this and the surrounding buildings becomes clear as conventional environmental design gives way to the contextual response, opening vistas to Lake Zurich for both dwellings .

(l)The occupants interact on a daily basis with the land scape as they move from the subterranean sheltered en trance to the upper ftoors, with the basement walls and glazing following the ground level of the sloping site, va the linear progression of the three ftights of stairs. The open plan multi-use spaces create large generous areas for living on a narrow corner block site with setback zoning.

Fig 6 Stair from Basement/ Entrance Level

Flg 7 : Rear View from Garden

(r;-1)Cross Section 1 200

Longitudinal Section 1 200

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First floor 1 200

Gound floor 1 200

(Basement/ entrance)o5

floor 1 200

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(Figure 8 Analytical Model)

Structural/Topographical Model

The model demonstrates the contras! between the enclosed basement level and upper ftoors. No glue was used to bond the upper ftoors to one another to demonstrate the structural stability of the shifting central wall.

By building into the slope and "in laying' the basement, Kerez aknowledges the prehistory of the site.

"The bulldozing of an irregular topography into a ftat site is clearly a technocratic gesture which aspires to a condition of absolute p/ace/essness , whereas the terracing of the same site to re ceive the stepped form of a building is an engagement in the act of "cultivating" the site "

Frampton 1983, p. 26

Rather than ftattening to a level datum from which to build, the gradient has been accepted into the design. This roots the build ing and as the glazing is continued around the perimiter where the building meets the ground, further emphasises the solidity of the central wall. Here the tectonic of the building is derived by re ducing the architecture into a single element, where the central structure is explicitly expressed in form as well as materiality.

At first the solution seems obvious, perhaps even too simple, however the complexity can be found in the rigour of the process and the theory of the approch.

By carefully analysing and distilling the requirements of the build ing to a single element, kerez achieves a conceptual clarity, which translates to the structure, spatial organisation and contex tual response.

Exploded Axonometric 1 200