into my arms
The northern part of the existing Tägetli factory quarter in Ostermundigen is to be transformed into an urban quarter with residential uses, commercial areas and a high quality of open space. Eight teams competed for this task in an call for bids procedure. The project developed by Lussi + Partner Architekten was awarded 3rd place, Lüchinger+Meyer was responsible for the structure and facade.
“into my arms” – the famous ballad by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds gives the design its name and reflects the spatial organization of the quarter: like arms, two longitudinal buildings accompanying the railroad with angled ends enclose the interior of the settlement with its generous open spaces and the two-story factory hall in the center. The jury explains the good ranking of the project as follows: “The architecturally and constructively precise project has many advantages. Above all may be specially emphasized the flat and flexible courtyard building in the heart of the neighborhood as a socio-spatial trump card, the Lötschenbach meadow as a neighborhood-serving open space, and the structural and architectural design of the factory plinth.”
The proposed structural concept for the new estate mainly provides clearly structured skeleton buildings in hybrid construction. The base floors of all buildings are made of solid construction due to the robustness requirements (traffic zone). Above them, residential floors rise in timber construction, consisting of timber columns, beams and board stack ceilings. The wooden ceilings are bonded with an overlying concrete, which also assumes the function of stiffening ceiling discs. The proposed structure contributes to the spatial structuring of the building and, thanks to the well-chosen spans, also makes an interesting contribution to a high flexibility of use.
The facade types in single-stone masonry and wood element modular construction, which are matched to the use and impact, as well as the situationally matched rear-ventilated cladding in wood and selectively in prefab concrete, form as a unit a holistically serving building envelope with a minimized CO2 footprint.
Visualization: Studio Blomen, Zurich
