Within the urban expansion areas of the 1970s in Lugano, this apartment complex is prominently located at the heart of the built-up area in the valley. Although the area is marked by considerable density, it is spatially redeemed by the setbacks, which ensure generous open spaces that, in fact, represent the quality of the social living environment in the neighborhood.

The project, located on the eastern side of Via Luigi Taddei in Lugano Viganello, is compressed between significant volumes of residential buildings to the south and east, while to the north, two smaller buildings leave a wider breathing space towards Via al Fiume. From Via Luigi Taddei, the perception of the slender volume gives a sense of great transparency, as the proportion of the built volume is much smaller than the free space between the buildings. This peculiarity is emphasized by the project through vertical blades that, like flower stems, rise within the plot, underlining the permeable character of the new structure. It offers an opportunity to fill a missing piece in the neighborhood, positively influencing the perception of lightness despite a strong presence. The light grayish exterior colors further enhance the building’s sense of lightness and verticality.

Respecting the setbacks, the seven-story structure presents itself as an elongated rectangle with a very interesting proportion, as it inserts itself like a thin wedge into the built urban fabric. This characteristic gives the public spaces a particularly generous openness. The main views from the building are oriented towards the less dense areas of the neighborhood, offering visitors a more open outlook from within the apartments towards the surrounding urban context, particularly to the north and west, while leaving circulation areas open to the south.

The landscaping along Via Luigi Taddei features a greener paved frontage, framing the building at eye level, creating an inviting atmosphere for the property. We imagine couples and families strolling serenely along the path, accompanied to their home by oxygenating greenery, rich in life and meaning, a reflection of love and respect towards a new concept of living.

The land is home to the two residential buildings located in an extraordinary position on the delta of the Mara river, overlooking Lake Lugano.

The project idea takes advantage of this particular condition to mark this place through a new building and complete a missing urban piece. The construction is divided into two volumes that open the built areas of the municipality towards the lake and vice versa are presented as visual entry portals from the lake.

The project guarantees a continuity of public spaces that enhance and complete the free areas within the urban fabric that in turn expand naturally towards the lake.

The continuity of these spaces is strengthened by the choice of the geometry of the volumes that both offer an elliptical plant of different dimensions like two organic boulders that dialogue with the sinuous forms of the lake landscape. The intervention stands as a trait union between the town and the lake landscape.

SWISS HOUSE XXXIV, Galbisio, Switzerland

Our design is an articulated construction meant for the enjoyment of the spaces for many years to come.

From afar the building is a marker in the landscape, it expresses a meaning already suggested by its context. From close up, it is a collection of many things and from within, a world, that changes with the passing of the hours of the day and the days of the year.

The design is like a constellation of points, each one’s luminosity defining our priorities, corresponding to the ambitions of those who live within it and is an interpretation of the spaces that embrace the joys of life.

We have built a place for the present that projects back into memory and forward into the future: the memory of pristine landscapes where the buildings of local stone had to resist until eternity, protecting the inhabitants; when gestures were used sparingly in order to concentrate strength. Now, they respond to a different perception, perhaps more evolved, to adapt to the speed of life.

However, the ultimate goal of a space remains as giving comfort to its inhabitant. This for us represents the drive towards the future; working to improve the quality of life and creating a place of positive energy, where man is the protagonist in finding his way to become a better person.

The construction is used as a primary dwelling. It is designed as a volume enclosed by a set of concrete sects. Beginning as a cube and a square plan, these concrete blades are shifted three dimensionally to open the space up to the Alpine landscape, while maintaining privacy. It protects the inhabitants from visual collisions with the neighbours yet is generous in its prospect, the borrowed landscape becoming part of daily life.

The concrete blades evoke the idea of terracing and retaining walls, common in this region, that at times lift up off the ground, revealing the entrance porch and the west bedroom.

The plan of the house is staggered by a mid level floor, allowing the house adhere to the gentle slope of the land. To the south, a double stair system brings us to the terraces of the kitchen and the living room. This aspect underlines the importance of the relationship between this new presence and the traditional stone constructions of the region where the external stairs offered access to the upper floor level. This system also reinforces the perception of a terraced structure in the landscape.

The cube, the primal element of this new organism in which to live, is the place of calm and the fulcrum of the hill. Its concrete blades are fragments, broken off from the medieval castle walls of Bellinzona. It is our ideal home, an enclosure that opens up to the context and breathes it in, making us part of these wonderful surroundings.

The space dilates across diverse horizons, in different directions, all intended by the design, and by the nearby details, like the tree or the vines of the neighbours’ gardens.

Architecture takes its roots from the place in which it is born and defines the time that runs in our senses. It changes and grows with us. It outlast us and we gift it to the future. Every house built with love will never stop surprising us, helping us and growing with us and those who will follow us.

 

Davide Macullo April 2017

Swiss House Rossa represents the constant commitment to build in the respect of places, to give a meaning to our every gesture to help our understanding of civilization.

It is a work of integration between art and architecture, a habitable sculpture and an architecture that needs art to be completed, also from the profile of its primary function, that of protecting man from the bad weather.

Daniel Buren involved him because during the years of our formation, through his recognizable signs, he taught us the pleasure to the synthesis in observing the beauty of nature. Today we have a permanent work in the heart of the Swiss Alps.

We enter this space, fabricated by the place: a fantastic environment, yet real. So right, as we want the world to be.

the Calanca Valley, when you go there you forget things as you know them. The way to get to the bottom is short, but it is a long journey a lifetime.

Once inside, the valley closes, front opens the door of dreams.

Rocky walls, forests, fields are soft, undated, the work of centuries of men and women, heats us. The rock tells us, the story of the Birth of the Earth, and how much it had to move, to give us this lucky place.

Rossa is a place of memory where simplicity is made civility. Our task is to continue this art of love for the territory through humble but indelible gestures. It is a village in the Swiss Alps at 1100 meters of altitude almost at the end of the valley, where nature expresses itself by prevaricating the will of human beings and helps them to relativize their presence in the world.

Building In this context means following the signs of the past in their essence, of the peace of a place that catalyzes energies difficult to describe. The apparent urban simplicity of the place is a complex weave of balances between men and stones used to build their own habitat.

Nothing here is new. Each object is devoured and amalgamated by history and nature and where it still resists the commodification of the territory both physical and spiritual.

Swiss House stands spatially along a line of volumes of patrician houses that form a conglomerate around the village church. With the new volume we underline this axis both in a physical way (resumption of the “patrician” volume) and conceptual (affirmation of a will beyond our permanence).

The cross in vertical projection, the rounding of the edges and the simple twist of the roof make dynamic and revisit the archetype of the “house”. The one designed by the children: two vertical lines, two diagonal flaps, holes to let the light in. It’s the same thing-house, but completely different.

It is the archetype reinvented to testify that the reasons for doing are inexhaustible and that the buildings are our public art, as well as the nature that surrounds us is not always the same, but changes and assumes new meanings depending on how we observe it.

 

It is a fence that defines a dynamic space. The points of view and the penetrations of light work on the perception of time, from the absence to the speed of instantaneous scrolling of the images. It’s an uninterrupted line of emotions. Each opening is calibrated and oriented on glimpses of the chosen landscape. Every point of view is different and every breath of the landscape suggests different things.

The buried parts are in reinforced concrete, the upper volume entirely in wood, without interpreting the traditional type of construction of the Alps, but using it as it is.

Swiss House XXII, Preonzo, Switzerland

This building is a small construction that takes on a universal meaning; creating a relationship between the DNA of a place and its future and represents a contemporary interpretation of the historical values of a place.

The project site lies in the area of urban expansion at the limit of the countryside, north of the historical centre of the village of Preonzo in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. This rich Alpine context is dotted by traditional stone volumes, where animals were once housed on the ground floor and families lived above and are testament to the history of this once farming community. Our original building was one of these vernacular volumes. Recognising the significance of preserving the historical memory, the design retains this original modest volume (now the full height living room) and respects its scale. The client’s need for a larger habitable space resulted in the addition of two new volumes that work in dialogue with the existing in terms of their character and scale, creating a new equilibrium generated from the historical context but interpreted with a contemporary language.

The roofline game of inclined planes that appear as a series of three traditional roofs, becomes a surrealist landscape. The inclined areas suddenly disappear from view and one does not have a clear perception of the space until one enters inside. The importance of the roof is underlined through the simple pleasure of an unexpected perception.

The materials used in the construction emphasise this relationship. The old buildings were built completely in stone and appear as compact volumes. The new buildings mirror this compactness by an homogenous finish on the exterior and interior surfaces.

The openings on the East of the house are the reflection of the flower beds laid out on the ground below. The spaces made by the three volumes create a positive-negative effect on the facade; one projected, one carved out, with the sky as roof.

Every space has been precisely drawn but flows easily into the next, creating a dynamic effect of dilation/compression. . The openings on the various levels offer diverse beautiful views out across the surrounding landscape. From the same space, one can see the agricultural fields, an ancient monastery, low mountains in the distance and the characteristic peaks of the Swiss Alps.

CAFÉ À PORTER, LUGANO, SWITZERLAND

 

Davide Macullo Architects + Ivo Redaelli

 

Café-à-porter is a boutique takeaway coffee and pastry shop in the heart of Lugano, Switzerland. It is located on the ground floor of one of the city’s elegant 19th century “noble palace “, once grand homes lining the boulevard facing the lake. The cafe is directly opposite the entrance to Parco Ciani, the city’s beautiful lakeside park.

 

The intention of the project is to create a modern, sophisticated and refined space while retaining the elegance and charm of the old building. As such the cafe itself is a contemporary, light, bright installation, with a fresh aesthetic that takes advantage of the generous dimensions of the exisiting space, put together with a simple palette of materials.

 

The serving counter is a single element in white corian with glass display zones that runs the length of the space and is large enough for storage and fridges, keeping the area streamlined. The walls and shelving are all a clean white, while the natural timber floor brings warmth. The large mirrored wall reflects the trees from the park across the road and creates the illusion of an endless ceiling.

 

In order to hide the mechanical area and tubes, we designed a suspended ceiling using laser-cut polystyrene. The roof above is painted a very dark grey so the lightweight cut-out “cafe a porter”, ceiling appears to float above. It emphasises the height of the space while reinforcing the simple graphic design discreetly displayed in the cafe below.

 

The existing building’s facade is a fine example of the city’s 19th century architecture with elegant and decorative stonework. This idea of ornament has been reintroduced to the cafe via its new ceiling. However, rather than the opulent celiings often seen in that epoch, this is a contemporary interpretation, echoing the past.

 

The cafe, busy with customers coming and going throughout the day, animates this street corner too at night. In the evening it is lit from within like the night sky with colored led lights, changing from blue to green to purple and pink.

SWISSHOUSE XXV MERGOSCIA

The Valle Verzasca is one of the most famous valleys in Ticino; a beautiful landscape with a rich history

New constructions here must firstly respond to the context before the necessities of the client, because it will outlast people and because it is our gift for the future generations.

 

Swisshouse XXV is situated on the edge of Mergoscia, a small village, along a steep slope with an incline of over 45 degrees, which gives the sensation of flying over the countryside, where the view disappears over the dam of Valle Verzasca into surrounding nature and its rich green woods

This is the last building plot of land of the village.

 

The proportions between the volumes and the reason for building over three floors stems from typical constructions found throughout the valley, allowing its integration into a landscape where old vertical buildings prevail. As a result, also the partition of the interior spaces follows the traditional arrangement of old houses of this area, with a light rotation of such elements as the stairs and a central retaining wall.

 

It is possible also to be multiple use: as a single family house or divided into two apartments.