“PROJECT PI” – AN OVERALL PERFORMANCE STUDY FOR A RESIDENTIAL BUILDING IN ZUG

The residential high-rise is organized as a dense, eight-span residential tower with an optimized, square access core in the middle. For the design of the flats, the profiled volume with its recessed corners is largely used for floor plans oriented towards two sides. This not only allows to prevent one-sided and unattractively oriented flats but also allows the sun to penetrate into each flat for a significantly longer time. In the proposed solution, the extension of the square access core to form an H-shaped construction can accommodate all vertical building-service developments and directly connect them to the adjacent bathroom and kitchen units. This arrangement, with the corner used for an individual room, allows an L-shaped design of the living and dining room, the use of which can be individually and freely chosen

The sophisticated systematization of the advantageously applied composite construction method provokes the use of prefabricated, composite wood-and-concrete elements that the H-figure directly spans onto the façade. The dimensions of these ribbed slabs do not obey the masses usual in residential construction or form, as with a module, the smallest common multiple, but create spatial relationships and units instead that regulate the entire flat. The inner, non-load-bearing room dividers are arranged separately from the organizing masses of the supporting structure.

The loads are carried by an external skeleton construction made of ash wood. However, they reach dimensions that can no longer be integrated into the façade elements and, thus, allow the supporting structure to be separated from the walls to form a “façade libre” – which is also to be created by linear, external wooden elements.