Two single family houses in Trübbach-Azmoos

A friend of mine had bought a leftover piece of a larger construction site – a trapezoidal parcel – and wanted to build a house on it. In fact there was room on the site for a complex of buildings – two houses with a third small structure for the garage. Because of my connection with the client I was able to begin building early. At the time, as a young man, I believed that a house had to have a main facade. But I knew of buildings that were oriented towards the garden, rather than the street. So that's what I did here.
In the large house all the important rooms are placed along this facade. The ground floor has a large living/dining area, with a library on one side and a kitchen on the other. The level above has four bedrooms. The ones at either end are smaller. This is because I wanted to place their windows closer to the corners, to give tension to the facade. At the time I thought that windows had to be in the middle of a room – I didn't consider positioning them asymmetrically. Now I had big problem. I had a very clear idea of the structure (it's usually the thing you begin with when you're young) but I didn't know where to put all the important service spaces. I couldn't put them along the main facade, or in a projecting bay. So I thought about their various functions, divided them up into their different components / washbasin, bath, WC, storage / and placed them in the corridor. The floors on the main level are in marble, and have underfloor heating. The upper floors are in wood, laid directly on top of the concrete structure to avoid cold bridges. The smaller house, which is at the end of the complex, is different. Its main floor is organized in three distinct zones: loggia, living space, service spaces. It too as marble on the ground floor and wood on the upper floor. The interior walls are finished to a high standard, as the house was to be sold on completion and we couldn't anticipate the taste of the new owners.

Peter Märkli