Kirschgarten HouseBinningen

The residential area is characterised by a mixture of multi- and single-family homes, with the greenness of the adjacent Allschwil Forest extending into the district. A house providing great privacy with maximum openness is to be built on a long, rectangular sloping plot in this area.

A long garden wall made of black-painted concrete discloses a series of levels above it: fine concrete ribs extending beyond the wall and other roof layers arranged horizontally and vertically. The house remains hidden, with tentative glimpses restricted to a round opening in the wall. Surrounded by a garden, the house keeps its distance from this enclosure. It is designed as a transparent structure to all sides that interacts with the play of sunlight in the course of a day: light floods the house from the south at midday, while a flat and low sun illuminates the living space from the west in the early evening.

Behind the enclosure, interior and exterior spaces form an entity in terms of structure, construction and spatial design. Two mural brackets engage: a three-metre-high living space opens up between garden wall and inside wall. It is structured by elements such as a kitchen block, chimney, stairway and skylight. Brass and oiled oak supplement the untreated concrete. The intensive framing of the living space endows it with a sense of intimacy. It is spanned by a large flat roof projecting beyond the sides. A rib construction composed of five longitudinal beams and one transverse beam structures and stabilises the roof. The living space is bordered and extended by wall aprons hanging down from the supporting structure on the narrow sides of the house: sunlight is refracted by them and directed inside the rooms facing east and west as indirect light. Interior and exterior spaces are linked by the prestressed-concrete roof, which turns into a pergola in the yard: an open intermediate space covered by upstand beams is created. The formal austerity of the orthogonal support grid is countered by the organic shapes of the floor panels in the yard.

In contrast to the intimacy of the living space, the individual rooms arranged along the periphery behind the inner wall engage in a dialogue with the city and the forest. A long flowing parental bedroom, bathroom and work room is bordered by a deep frame construction made of wood along the north facade. A spatial layer of three children's rooms follows to the east.