Esch.Sintzel . photos: © Philip Heckhausen
The Trift settlement on the edge of Horgen-Oberdorf is intended to show what sustainable planning can look like when it is thought of comprehensively: economically, energy-efficiently, socially networked. Four teams of architects are designing four construction sites that are still undeveloped today.
The areas are connected in an informal way by a path that is wide and comfortable because it runs parallel to the slope. Esch Sintzel’s construction site is characterized by a gentle hilltop (German: “Kuppe”), the only flat surface on the slope.
In order to keep this hilltop free, the houses are placed on its edges. The five residential houses and the bicycle house are fragile, thin-walled wooden structures, which have been mounted here as it were temporary. Perhaps they are also reminiscent of circus wagons grouped into a circled wagon train, and the access paths are the tire tracks of the tractors. It proves to be not so easy to cultivate untouched, free land – hence the caution of this temporary land grab.
The buildings unite a mixed bag of apartments under their widely overhanging roofs. The apartments are complementarily interlocked and thus spatially address the coexistence of different ways of life.
_
