Stephane Grandgirard . Andy Schrämli . Raffael Baur . photos: © Joël Tettamanti
Something like a boat, bursting out of the clouds, somewhere in the in-between. Mirror of the sun in all the facade highlights. Spinnaker facing the horizon. Wind blowing through the walls, painting the landscape all around.
At first there was nothing but an empty shell, singing its past in the everlasting breeze. So it was, there was space for freedom. A freedom to expand to this constantly changing horizon. Light threw the tall trees. Free plan. And always, the lake in our corners eyes. The windows must be to play with the exterior, the plants, the wind, the clouds. On their axis, they rotate and play with their surroundings. An amusing carousel of framing.
The project was led from A to Z by LAPORCH’s partner workshop, Stahl und Traumfabrik. Everything is bespoke, every detail is part of a global reflexion, from the window handle to the floor treatment. A time given to detail, to introspection. A time to settle, to look around and feel. Stéphane Grandgirard and his team lived here the time for the work to be done, to get absorbed by the site, to awake senses.
Entirely designed by the workshop, the pivot windows, made out of local larch, blur the border between the interior and the exterior. The first one, facing the sun, is 4.5 meters on 1.10 meters high. It fully rotates and can turn down on itself.
On the ground floor, opposite to the lake, the three windows meet. Challenge of freeing the facade with uprights. On the other side, let’s forget about the threshold, windows expand all the way up. Upside down, inside out, the ceiling vanishes. Limits become memories. The lake and pines breath in the house and the house breath out, to the mountains and back.
Text by Julia Widmann
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Stephane Grandgirard | APES architectes | Lausanne
SPI, Transformation in Spiez Switzerland, 2014–2016,
Client: Privat
Architects: Stephane Grandgirard togheter with Andy Schrämli (Stahl und Traumfabrik) and Raffael Baur (Undend)
Realization: Stahl und Traumfabrik
Photography: Joël Tettamanti
