This house in northern Switzerland designed by local architect Pascal Flammer, frames views of a vast rural landscape through round and rectangular windows, as well as through entire walls of glazing.
Pascal Flammer specified timber for the building’s structure, cladding and joinery. Externally, the wooden surfaces are stained black, while inside the material is left uncoloured to show its natural grain. The ground floor consists of one single family room with a noticeably low horizontal ceiling. The base of the house is sunken into the earth by 75 centimetres, allowing the surrounding ground level to line up with the bottom of windows that surround the building’s lower storey. In this space there is a physical connection with the nature outside the continuous windows. The space above is the inverse. This floor is divided into four equal rooms with 6m high ceilings. The height defines the space. The floor above is about observing nature – a more distant and cerebral activity.
Photographs: Ioana Marinescu
