The concrete facade of this housing block in Lausanne, Switzerland, features four different surface finishes to create a patchwork effect that hints at the building's complicated internal layout (+ slideshow).

Designed by Swiss firm 2b Architectes – who also recently completed a faceted concrete bridge – the five-storey building accommodates four multi-level apartments on a corner site near Campagne de Beaumont, an estate featuring several 19th-century buildings.

This led 2b Architectes to develop a building intended to combine contemporary details and finishes with traditional proportions.

The facade was divided up to reveal which parts belonged to which home. Some parts were cast against timber boards to create a grained texture, while some sections feature a smooth surface.

A mineral wash was also applied in some parts to create a gritty texture designed to resonate with the ground surface.

These surfaces are punctured by square windows in two different sizes. Some sit flush with the concrete, while others are slightly recessed.

"The compact building with its punctured window holes reinterprets characteristic qualities of the 19th-century buildings," said 2b Architectes, which is led by Stephanie Bender and Philippe Béboux.

"Since the concrete surfaces of each individual apartment are treated differently, the typologically interwoven character of the interior can also be perceived on the exterior."

Named Urban Villa Beaumont 4 in 1, the six-sided building was completed in 2011. At its centre is a small square courtyard that accommodates the entrances to all four homes inside.

Unlike the facade, the walls fronting the courtyard are glazed to bring light through all parts of the building.

Four huge letters hang down from overhead, spelling out the word ROOM.

"The communally used covered interior atrium at the core of the solid construction guides daylight inside the building," said the architects.

"This acts as a point of reference for the floor plans of the four interlocking residential units."

All four of the homes contained in the building are significantly different. Rather than each having a floor, or a particular side of the building, they spiral up around each other via a double-helix staircase that surrounds the central courtyard.

Two of the homes each have three bedrooms plus their own ground-level parking space, and there is also a one-bedroom home with large flexible living spaces and three parking spaces.

The fourth home is a large family unit with four bedrooms, which takes up the entire upper floor as well as spaces on the lower levels.

"The principle of the floor-plan concept combines the advantages of individual living with communal togetherness – an innovative and well-conceived answer to urban densification that revitalises the idea of living together," added the architects.

All four homes also features a private terrace on the ground floor, screened from prying eyes by concrete walls.

Photography is by Roger Frei, apart from where otherwise indicated.

Project credits:

Architect: 2b Architectes
Team 2b: Ph.Béboux, S Bender, T Borges, G Warnking, C Jung, GA Lili, M Baumgartner, F Ben-Amor, J Blanc, A Clement, P Gabrielli, S Grimm, E Quaresina
Artist: Christian Robert-Tissot
Construction management: Beric
Structural engineer: INGPHI
Building physicist: Sorane
Acoustic engineer: Bernard Braune
Building envelope engineer: BCS
Landscape architect: CA Presset

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Swiss studio E2A infilled the facade of an old Zurich warehouse to create this rehearsal space for the city's opera house, before tacking a 60-metre-high apartment block onto one side (+ slideshow).

E2A was commissioned by Swiss developer Allreal Holding to create the performance space and apartments as part of a new masterplan for Zurich's Escher Wyss quarter, which overlooks the Limmat river.

The brief was to refurbish and extend a warehouse built in the early 1900s by Swiss company Escher Wyss, which started out as a textile spinning business before expanding to produce machinery for textiles, power turbines and ship steam engines.

The company was taken over by a Swiss engineering and manufacturing firm called Sulzer AG in the late 1960s. Since then several of its buildings have been repurposed as cultural venues, and this project becomes the latest.

The original facade comprises a mixture of pale beige and red bricks with arched window openings.

E2A used pale grey bricks to infill these openings and to extend the facade upwards.

"The new construction absorbs the existing, infusing it with a porous materiality," said E2A's Pia Simmendinger.

"Only the walls were kept of the original building, and the former windows are filled with the new, grey brick."

This building now houses two rehearsal stages and changing rooms for the Zurich opera house, as well as workshops for the production of stage sets.

The tapered tower – named Escher Terrace High-Rise Apartments – protrudes from one side of the old warehouse. It accommodates 50 apartments organised in eight-metre-high modules.

"By weaving the existing industrial elements with the residential tower, the building engages with an unusual urban situation, standing slightly offset from the street," Simmendinger told Dezeen.

The south side of the tower is chamfered, providing a sloping facade that integrates rows of glass-fronted balconies, which offer views over the city centre and Lake Zurich.

"The inclination of the tower reduces the existing depth of 25 metres and allows it to generate a terraced housing," added Simmendinger.

"The terraces have a south exposure and leave the noisy street in the north behind."

Photography is by Georg Aerni, Rasmus Norlander, Radek Brunecky and Jan Bitter.

Project credits:

Architecture: E2A
Client: Allreal Holding
Team: Wim Eckert, Piet Eckert with Nils Döring and Anna Maria Tosi, Sabine Bayer, Samuel Benz, Daniel Bock, Vesna Brandestini, Carolin Döpfer, Christian Dürr, Cristina Gonzalo Nogués, Bryan Graf, Philipp Heidemann, Harris Iliadis, Aidan Kümmerli, Valentino Sandri, Mireya Sanchez Gomez, Alexander Struck
Collaboration: Artistic Collaboration: Hans-Peter Kistler, Beinwil
General contractor: Allreal Generalunternehmung AG, Zurich
Structural engineering: JägerPartner AG Bauingenieure SIA, Zurich
Landscape consulting: Schmid Landschaftsarchitekten GmbH, Zurich
Facade engineering: Atelier P3 AG, Zurich
Building physics: Buri Bauphysik & Akustik, Volketswil
MEP: Troxler & Partner AG, Ruswil

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Canadian studio DesignAgency has used steel reinforcing bars to create a shelving system within a kitchen appliance showroom in Toronto (+ slideshow).

Aiming to create a space that doesn't "look or feel like a traditional appliance store", the studio worked with Appliance Love to develop an innovative way to present the brand's products within an old warehouse.

The designers kept the original concrete flooring and large windows, but added a bright red frame to the entrance of the store to increase visibility from the street.

"We wanted to stay true to the industrial nature of the building," designer Jamie Phelan told Dezeen. "We used industrial materials to build the space in an exposed and raw way that would contrast with the pristinely new appliances."

DesignAgency chose the steel rods that are typically used to reinforce concrete – which are also known as rebar – to create the grid-like shelving system.

"The rebar grid system was made in sections in a downtown Toronto metal shop," Phelan explained. "It was then brought in, welded together and assembled on site."

The steel grid was designed to "serve as a continuous rhythm and tie each area together" across the entire ground-floor space.

Plywood boxes that can slot in and out of the compartments are used to house smaller appliances, crockery and plants. The boxes can be grouped together and moved around – allowing the space to be changed as needed.

Model kitchens are installed across the space to present the larger appliances such as fridges and ovens in context. Units are constructed from raw plywood and islands are made using solid surface material Caesarstone.

Rebar has previously been used to create a storage system inside a Dublin coffee shop, and also influenced the design of a skeletal furniture range.

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Walls made from compressed earth combine with timber-clad surfaces and glass to help this visitor centre for the Swiss Ornithological Institute complement its natural setting on the banks of a lake (+ slideshow).

The institute is situated on the shore of Lake Sempach to the north west of Lucerne in central Switzerland. It houses a non-profit organisation that studies wild birds and their habitats, raising awareness of their needs among stakeholders including the Swiss government, planners and nature conservancy groups.

Swiss architecture studio MLZD was invited to design a visitor centre for the institute accommodating a new exhibition space and information services for the public, as well as a care centre for treating sick or injured birds.

The new facility replaces an existing centre that was situated in a protected area close to the lake. It is now located outside of this area on an irregularly shaped plot between the lake and a road leading to the village of Sempach, which informed its angular plan.

"The architecture formulates a passage or entrance from the urban to the natural surroundings," the architects told Dezeen. "The building shapes reflect these different surroundings by reacting differently."

"The shapes differentiate the spacial and visual connections so the building appears well integrated and much smaller than it really is. But the shapes also refer to the restrictions set by the given area and building laws of the lake protection area."

The centre comprises two angular structures connected by a large foyer. Elevations facing the road are largely solid, while the rear facades incorporate full-height windows that provide expansive views towards the lake.

The building's load-bearing outer shell is constructed from rammed earth using a technique involving the gradual compacting of layers of damp earth in a mould to form solid walls.

This building method, which uses natural materials and has a low environmental impact, was chosen in response to a brief calling for a building that exhibits a strong ecological profile. Rammed earth is also extremely durable and has excellent thermal properties.

"We designed the building to be integrated with the lakeside," explained the project team. "Wood and rammed earth intensify this impression because both materials are found at the lake."

One of the building's volumes contains a flexible exhibition space dedicated to birdlife and the work of the institute.

The other houses an auditorium and care centre on the ground floor, with a learning space on the level above and minimally decorated bedrooms for boarding interns who spend time working at the institute on the top floor.

The foyer area features a reception desk and entrances to the various facilities accommodated in the two structures on either side, as well as a glass-walled aviary housing birds that are too weak to survive in the wild.

A casual seating area positioned next to the aviary enables visitors to observe birds in this enclosure, or look out on the lake through the adjacent windows.

"The exhibition area doesn't show living birds so the aviary and the lookout at the lake give a connection to the living creatures," said the architects. "We incorporated the aviary because it forms a transition between inside and the nature outside."

In the foyer, the external walls of the two polygonal structures become internal surfaces with openings carved into them to accommodate doorways and windows.

The earth surfaces are complemented by wooden canopies over the main entrance at the front and a terrace at the rear.

Decking and joinery including exposed roof beams continue the application of natural materials throughout the exterior and interior of the building.

Rammed earth has seen a revival in recent years, with architects around the world using it to create structures that are more environmentally friendly than their concrete counterparts. Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao used the material on a weekend house, while Herzog & de Meuron specified it for a herb processing plant in Switzerland.

Photography is by Alexander Jaquemet.

Project credits:

Architects: MLZD
Team: Claude Marbach, Julia Wurst, Pat Tanner, Daniele Di Giacinto, Roman Lehmann, Amelie Braun, Katharina Kleczka, Marlies Rosenberger, Regina Tadorian, Johannes Weisser, Samuel Wespe, Miriam Zenk
Construction management: Kunzarchitekten
Construction engineer (solid): WAM Planer und Ingenieure
Construction engineer (wood): Pirmin Jung Ingenieure fur Holzbau
Landscape architect: Fontana Landschaftsarchitektur GmbH
Exhibition designer: Steiner Sarnen Schweiz
Rammed earth: LEHM TON ERDE Baukunst GmbH

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Architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron has reframed the cable-car station on the top of Switzerland's Chäserrugg mountain by enveloping it within a wooden restaurant building (+ slideshow).

Located in a ski resort within Switzerland's Toggenburg region, the Chäserrugg building stands at the peak of the mountain at an altitude of approximately 2,260 metres. It completely surrounds the 1970s-built cable car station, offering a more comprehensive facility for winter sports tourists.

Herzog & de Meuron – which also recently completed a new stadium in Bordeaux – wanted the building to reference the heritage of its Alpine setting without becoming a pastiche.

To achieve this, the team used locally sourced spruce wood wherever possible, with the addition of contemporary details. They also employed local craftsmen to build the various elements of the structure.

"We tried to develop a language that fits into Toggenburg, without falling into the trap of popular Alpine clichés," explained architect Christine Binswanger, one of the five senior partners of the firm.

"The participation of local companies provoked a lot of passion," she added. "The construction could thus also be implemented in very resource-friendly way. "

Chäserrugg is the easternmost of the seven peaks that make up the Churfirsten mountain range. The region had been largely inaccessible until 1972, when the cable car was installed – connecting it with Zurich and St Gallen.

A restaurant had also been in operation on the mountain before now, accommodated within the housing originally built for construction workers.

This was demolished to make way for Herzog & de Meuron's structure, while the steel and concrete station was retained and concealed behind the new wooden facade.

"This project involved creating a place that has character in every season and in all weather, to create a mood for skiers who are in a hurry, for groups wishing to spend a day or two days here, but also for hikers and other people who seek peace," said Binswanger.

The completed building is sheltered beneath a low-hung sloping roof, which is supported by a series of branching wooden columns.

The restaurant runs along one side of the structure and is glazed on three sides to offer panoramic views of the Alpine scenery. It features built-in wooden seating areas and a balcony that extends out over the precipice.

Related content: see more projects by Herzog & de Meuron

The station sits just behind, where cable cars emerge through unusually shaped cutouts in the walls.

All of the materials used to the build the structure were transported via cable car, apart from the crane, which had to be airlifted to the site by helicopter.

The project follows a recent series of small-scale projects by Herzog & de Meuron, which is best known for bigger projects like Miami's Pérez Art Museum and the Beijing Olympic Stadium. The firm recently created a trio of wooden pavilions at the Milan Expo and a biologically filtered bathing lake.

"The mountain station on the Chäserrugg is one of the smaller projects that we dedicate ourselves to again and again," said studio co-founder Pierre de Meuron.

"The courage of the building's owners to start a project in such a place, where for many years nothing has happened, and to attach great importance to architectural quality, is remarkable," he added.

Photography is by Katalin Deér.

Project credits:

Client: Toggenburg Bergbahnen
Architect: Herzog & de Meuron – Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger
Project team: Michael Fischer, Beatus Kopp, Hendrik Steinigeweg, Salomé Gutscher, Roman Aebi, Frederik Bo Bojesen, Leif Buchmann, Yannick Claessens, Santiago Espitia-Berndt, Alexander Franz, Alen Guberinic, Justin Hui, Maria Krasteva, Victor Lefebvre, Severin Odermatt, Philipp Schaefle, Kaspar Stöbe, Christoph Wassmann, Freya Winkelmann
Construction management: Ghisleni
HVAC engineering: Amstein + Walthert
Structural engineering: Schnetzer Puskas Ingenieure, Pirmin Jung, Schällibaum
Acoustics: Bau und Raumakustik
Building physics: Zimmermann & Leuthe
Fire protection: Amstein + Walthert
Interior consulting: Rondelli Consulting
Carpentry: Schreinerei Stolz
Electrical: Kolb Elektro
Elevators: AS Aufzüge
Roofing: Bühler Bedachungen

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This new movie produced by film studio Spirit of Space tours the interior of the Tamedia Office Building in Zurich – the first Swiss project completed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban.

The unnarrated, two-minute video produced by the Chicago-based film company shows exterior and interior shots of the seven-storey, wood and glass building, which was completed in 2013 on a prominent site in central Zurich.

The structure is an expansion to the existing headquarters for Tamedia, a top Swiss media company. The 10,120-square-metre (109,000 square foot) project also entailed adding two storeys to the top of a neighbouring building occupied by Tamedia.

The building's most notable feature is its exposed structural system made entirely of timber, with no metal connectors. Ban, the 2014 Pritzker Prize laureate, developed the system in collaboration with Swiss engineer Hermann Blumer, who specialises in timber structures.

Ban chose wood for its sustainable properties – it is a renewable construction material – and for aesthetic purposes. The timber gives the building "a unique appearance from the inside space, as well as from the city around," said his firm.

The wood-framed structure is clad in a glass skin. "Special attention was given to achieving low-energy transmission levels that respond to the latest and very strict Swiss regulations in terms of energy consumption," noted the firm.

The building's 50-metre-long (164 foot) eastern elevation is considered the main facade. It stretches along a busy street and overlooks the River Sihl.

The facade features a patchwork of tall, retractable windows that lift upward, revealing informal rooms that become open to the air. This operable window system "reinforces the privileged relationship between the interior of the building and its surrounding landscape," said the firm.

Inside, the building is defined by open-play layouts, with wooden beams and columns visible throughout. The lobby features terrazzo flooring made with river stones, along with cardboard tube chairs and tables from Ban's Carta Series, originally designed for Cappellini in the late 1990s.

The building houses approximately 480 employees of Tamedia. The media company has been working to consolidate all of its offices into this centralised location in Zurich.

Ban has long used timber, cardboard and other experimental materials in his architecture. Notable examples include the Aspen Art Museum in the US, the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France, and the Cardboard Cathedral in New Zealand. Recently, he created a pavilion made of 90,000 empty makeup cases for the Venice Biennale.

The Japanese architect has offices in Tokyo, Paris and New York.

Photography is by Didier Boy de la Tour.

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The glazed lower level of this house by Switzerland's Lake Biel are sandwiched between two concrete slabs, helping to protect living spaces and an outdoor terrace from flooding (+ slideshow).

MLZD was asked to design the house for a couple – the same clients as for one of the Swiss architecture studio's first projects, back in 2000. They wanted a bigger house to accommodate their growing family.

The clients picked a spot on the south-east side of Lake Biel, also known as Lake Bienne, on the outskirts of rural village Ipsach.

Glazed walls were added to frame views of the garden and lake from the ground-floor living space, while the bedroom that make up the upper floor are clad in dark timber.

The meadows and woodland that surround the property are occasionally swamped when the lake bursts its banks, and so the architects chose a sturdy concrete slab construction to keep the property watertight.

A thick concrete base slab elevates the house above its marshy garden, and provides a terrace for outdoor dining.

"The materialisation of the building is simple and reduced," said the studio in a project statement. "While raw concrete dominates the ground floor, the upper floor is kept completely in dark wood."

"Top and bottom are spatially, structurally and in material interlocked with each other," added the firm.

The building stretches horizontally across the site, separating a driveway and carpark nearest the road from the secluded garden to the rear.

Concrete and timber walls provide increased privacy from the street, while sliding glazing in the pavilion-like construction at the rear opens into the densely vegetated garden.

The concrete is left exposed across the walls, ceilings and floors of the ground floor living spaces, providing unity between indoor and outdoor spaces.

"The house is searching for intense interior-exterior connections," said the studio. "Concrete is used inside and outside and helps to blur the threshold."

Concrete elements creep into the interior of the upper floor and vice-versa wood into the ground floor.

Curving brass bannisters enclose a flight of concrete steps that lead from a wood-lined hallway to the bedrooms on the floor above.

An atrium between three children's bedrooms and the master suite provides a double-height dining space, which is the focal-point of the family home.

"This is the building's heart and the main whereabouts of the family," MLZD's Andreas Frank told Dezeen.

MLZD, which was set up in 1997, has completed a number of projects in western Switzerland including a hilltop events space with panoramic glazing and a bird watching centre with rammed-earth walls.

Photography is by Alexander Jaquemet.

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Swiss firm Markus Schietsch Architekten has completed a new elephant house for a zoo in Zurich featuring an elaborate wooden gridshell roof and a glass-sided swimming pool (+ slideshow).

The Kaeng Krachan Elephant Park at Zoo Zurich offers six times as much room as the previous enclosure, creating an environment where the mammals can roam freely between indoor and outdoor spaces, while also making it easier for visitors to observe the animals.

Markus Schietsch Architekten collaborated with landscape firm Lorenz Eugster and engineering office Walt + Galmarini on the project, creating a compound that can accommodate up to 10 elephants at a time.

The building's most prominent feature is its domed wooden roof, which has an area of 6,800 square metres. It is interspersed with 271 ETFE plastic skylights – all in different shapes and sizes – to create the impression of tree branches.

"The roof dissolves into a transparent maze-like structure that establishes an organic relationship to the surrounding forest," said the architects in a project text.

"In the interior, the roof unfolds its atmospheric effect – as if through a canopy of trees, the sunlight filters through the intricate roof structure, generating constantly changing light atmospheres."

The roof was constructed from prefabricated triple-layer panels, which were assembled flat on site and then bent to create the domed form – known as a gridshell. Built, the structure has a wavy profile that lifts up at certain spots to reveal glazed wall sections.

"The continuously changing facade structure consists of lamellas that seemingly grow up to the edge of the roof as an organically shaped band, indicating the load-bearing areas," said the team. "The iconographic shell of the roof, together with the dynamic facade, form an atmospheric envelope concentrating the essence of the design into a symbiosis between architecture and landscape."

The 11,000-square-metre complex boasts several different watering holes, allowing elephants to swim and bathe. There is also a pool with a glass wall, providing an underwater viewpoint for visitors to observe the animals swimming from a more unusual angle.

This gives the animals more freedom to develop their social relationships and ensures greater security for the animal keepers, according to Zoo Zurich.

Six elephants moved into the Zoo Zurich enclosure in mid-March to allow them to get used to their new environment, ahead of the opening in June. Unlike the previous compound, the new elephant house allows "protected contact," which means that keepers are never in the same room as the animals.

The Kaeng Krachan Elephant Park takes its name from a national park in Thailand, where the zoo supports a project to help protect Asiatic elephants from conflict with farmers over damage to plantations.

A number of zoos have been redesigning their animal enclosures in response to growing information about the needs of different species, creating areas that offer more stimulation and space. Examples include the glass-domed elephant house at Copenhagen Zoo by Foster + Partners and a giraffe house with thatched walls at Rotterdam Zoo.

Last year, Bjarke Ingels' firm BIG unveiled Zootopia – a vision for the future of Denmark's Givskud Zoo where animals and humans "co-exist", with buildings disguised by the landscaping of the site.

Photography is by Andreas Buschmann unless specified otherwise.

Project credits:

Client: Zoo Zürich
General planners: CGA, BGS Architekten
Architect: Markus Schietsch Architekten
Construction management: Fischer Architekten, BGS Architekten
Landscape architect: Lorenz Eugster Landschaftsarchitektur, Vetsch Partner Landschaftsarchitekten
Structural engineers: Walt + Galmarini
Technical services: TriAir Consulting
Electrical engineers: Schmidiger + Rosasco
Light design: Bartenbach Lichtlabor

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Swiss childrenswear brand L'asticot has collaborated with architecture firm Bureau A to install a miniature cardboard city at its Geneva store (+ slideshow).

Bureau A was asked by child and baby clothes store L'asticot to create an environment that would reflect the creativity and playfulness of the brand.

The studio responded by crafting an imaginary urban environment that takes cues from the architecture of the Soviet Union – examples of which were documented by photographer Rebecca Litchfield in her Soviet Ghosts series.

Bureau A specifically mentioned the work of architectural organisation the OSA Group, which built Constructivist-style buildings across the region from 1925 to 1930, as a point of reference.

Created to scale, cardboard buildings of Bureau A's city are housed on a circular structure made of welded steel, which has a clothes rail underneath.

The entire installation is lit by a cloud-shape neon light hanging above and is visible from the shopfront.

A set of steps in the centre of the structure leads small visitors up into the middle of the city. On closer inspection, miniature forms of people and animals can be seen placed between buildings.

Over time the steel base will become a home to different imaginary worlds, intended to align with the various themes of new collections from L'asticot.

Although the architectural reference might not be obvious to the store's younger visitors, the firm believes that the buildings speak for themselves.

"No one is indifferent to their strong expressive forms," Bureau A's Joana Croft Dantas told Dezeen. "And it is not historical research but more an immersion in our fantasy of a Soviet architecture.”

"Kids always like to create worlds of their own – they like to draw them or even to build them. In this sense they are close to architects, maybe with a bit more imagination," she added.

Bureau A is also based in Geneva. Recent projects by the studio include a wooden cabin concealed inside an artificial rock, a seven-storey mobile performance space and street kitchen on a tricycle, and a pavilion built out of recycled windows.

Photography is by Dylan Perrenoud.

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Zurich citizens can now relieve themselves at a pink marble public pissoir, installed at an open-air car park by local architecture firm Bureau A (+ slideshow).

Composed of pink Portuguese marble imported from Lisbon, the Fountain 2017 piece is one of three installations curated by Silvia Converso, Michele D'Ariano Simionato and Caterina Steiner as part of the Common Ground art project.

"In the form of a noble fountain, a classical figure of occidental culture, Lisbon sends a solid salute to rich Zurich," said a statement from Bureau A, which recently installed a miniature cardboard city at a Geneva childrenswear store.

Occupying several parking spaces of Zurich's Pfingstweid car park, the urinal is composed of four large marble panels that rest on a wooden frame.

The liquid from emptied bladders is channelled along the base onto a pothole filled with gravel and small plants.

A neon light sticks out from the top right corner to serve as clear signage for night time visitors.

The car park itself is situated on the remains of an ancient common, and the urinal was prompted by discussions around the area's historic role as a shared space.

"Public space needs to stay public, open and support debate and creative proposals of any kind, whether they are social, political or cultural," said the studio.

"A contribution where people can meet, be revolted to whatever, play, drink, sleep, love. Anything should be possible within a public space."

The Common Ground installations are hosted as part of the car park's ongoing Art Container project, which launched in June 2015 to commission and promote contemporary art in an independent and non-commercial exhibition space.

Dutch designers Aandeboom recently proposed a rethink of the urinal with a tree-mounted design for Roskilde Festival, and Copenhagen studio UiWE suggested the Pollee urinal for women, which was also trialled at the event.

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Swiss architecture studio Stereo Architektur has completed its first project: a wooden structure that transforms a former Basel machine factory into a shared working space (+ slideshow).

The structure inhabits the main assembly hall of the former Burckhardt factory in the Swiss city, a 1930s building that was originally used for making perforation machines. The hall had most recently been used as an events space.

The building's new tenant is Launch Labs, which provides startups with co-working spaces. The company needed to turn the area into an adaptable environment offering workstations as well as areas for cultural activities, relaxation and workshops.

The space also needed to maintain the capacity to host large events from time to time.

Described by the studio as "a house within a house", the installation was constructed from laminated veneer lumber, with the supporting beam structure left exposed.

Supported by thin columns and accessed by a flight of stairs at the front, the first floor includes two differently sized meeting spaces and floor-to-ceiling glass windows that overlook the factory. Both rooms include extensive built-in storage shelves.

The second floor provides an astroturfed terrace under the roof, doubling up as a further meeting space or area for relaxation, and the ground floor of the structure was left open plan.

The majority of the space occupies the full height of the building.

Due to limited access – the main entrance to the building is a single door – the new addition was created as a set of pieces that were then assembled inside.

"Since the installation is conceived for an indoor space, the project was liberated from environment requirements and constraints," Stereo Architektur said in a statement. "Details were invented, mechanisms kept simple and materials raw."

"Thus the house within the house gets a strong character, on the one hand adapting to the charms of the existing, on the other hand emancipating itself through its materialisation," it added, "an element capable of adding to the identity of the location."

Disused warehouses and factory buildings offer large expanses of floor area for companies to customise into offices. Other examples include a former corset factory in Gothenburg converted into an open-plan workspace, and a 19th-century factory in Ghent turned into the regional headquarters for a care home.

Photography is by Lukas Schaffhuser.

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Chocolate-patterned wall panelling and sofas shaped like Toblerones feature in Dutch designer Marcel Wanders' Swiss-inspired hotel in Zurich (+ slideshow).

Wanders, who co-founded design brand Moooi, used items typically associated with Switzerland to inform the interiors of the 245-bedroom Kameha Grand Zurich hotel.

Alongside the chocolate references, the rooms have mini-bars modelled on bank vaults – a nod to the country's renowned finance industry – and lamps that resemble oversized cowbells, also traditional in Switzerland.

"Others deliver an interior design, but we offer a reason for a visit, we create a destination," said Wanders. "A hotel should entertain, inspire and stimulate. We want the guest to have a lifestyle experience, by creating a place full of surprises and beauty."

Communal spaces for guests draw from a range of other influences. They include a bar, two lounges and two restaurants – serving Italian and Japanese food, and both designed to reflect their cuisine.

Walls in the bar are designed to resemble panels of gold bullions, while a rug is shaped like a giant coin.

Dark surfaces and furniture were chosen to create an intimate atmosphere in the Smoker's Lounge, where photographs of people smoking are mounted on the walls and different liquors are illuminated in individual niches.

In contrast, the Shisha Lounge is intended to showcase a contemporary Arabic aesthetic – and is named after the traditional tobacco smoking technique using a bowl and hose that is popular in the Middle East.

The hotel houses 224 Premium and Deluxe bedrooms, as well as two Executive suites and six Business suites.

Eleven individually designed Theme suites include the Poker Face suite, which features a roulette table and the walls that look like chocolate squares, and the Serenity suite that comes with yoga accessories and scented candles. Others carry titles including Ghostwriter, Fair Play, Watchmaker, and Diva Suite.

The 701-square-metre Kameha Dome event space has red fabric draped from the ceiling, which contrasts with the black and white tiled flooring.

Moooi furniture is used throughout the hotel, including the Love and Nest seating collections designed by Wanders. The brand also launched a range of hotel bath and shower products earlier this year.

Wanders has previously designed the interiors for the Kameha Grand in Bonn, Germany, as well as hotels including the Mondrian South Beach in Miami and the Andaz Hotel in Amsterdam.

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Herzog & de Meuron has completed a concrete apartment building on the outskirts of Zurich, which has staircases housed in four cylindrical corner towers (+ slideshow).

The eight-storey block is located in Zellweger Park, Uster – a former industrial park that is being converted into a residential and commercial neighbourhood centred around a public park and sculpture garden.

The building contains 32 apartments, intended by Herzog & de Meuron to be as generously sized as possible. To achieve this, the Swiss architecture firm designed a building with staircases at all four corners, meaning there is no need for corridors.

To draw attention to these spiralling staircases, they stand inside cylindrical volumes reminiscent of the fortified towers of a castle.

All eight storeys contain four apartments, varying in size from 81 to 130 square metres. They can be accessed by lift as well as by staircase, and these lifts open directly into each home.

Apartments feature windows facing in two different directions, ensuring that each home is filled with plenty of natural light and ventilation. All 32 also have a private 20-square-metre balcony shaped in a crescent, fronted by white picket fences created by artist Erik Steinbrecher.

"Good proportions, flowing spaces and fabulous views – these primary architectural aspects define the quality of the apartments," explained partner in charge Christine Binswanger.

"We did without state-of-the-art fittings," she added, "instead emphasising a large measure of privacy and a close connection to the natural surroundings."

The building's structure is a simple concrete grid, which was poured using the inexpensive formwork. The concrete was left exposed on the exterior, and mistakes were only corrected if "technically necessary".

Inside, some concrete surfaces have been left unfinished to reveal the location of load-bearing walls. Partition walls are white-painted stucco, and there is also wooden strip flooring.

"We did not dress up the building," said Binswanger. "The concrete was moulded with the best formwork [available within the budget] and remained unaltered. The building is rough and you feel that it was done by hand."

A car park is located underneath the building, with 43 parking spaces for motor vehicles and 64 bicycle parking spaces.

Zellweger Park was left vacant in 2005, after the Zellweger Luwa air conditioning company was sold. Since then several architects have been involved in repurposing the area as a centre for work and living, including EM2N and Gigon/Guyer Architekten.

Herzog & de Meruon's building stands opposite the brand's former headquarters and showroom pavilion, designed in the 1960s by Swiss architect Roland Rohn.

"Within the typical Swiss agglomeration community of Zellweger, Uster Park stands out," said studio co-founder Jacques Herzog. "It is exemplified by owners who have long been demanding an architecture to cherish, and to provide a wide audience with access to an industrial site previously closed to the outside."

Herzog & de Meuron has also recently completed a monumental new stadium in Bordeaux and a mountain-top cable-car station. The firm is also currently working on a revamp of Chelsea FC's London stadium and the severely delayed Hamburg Elbphilharmonie concert hall.

Photography is by Erica Overmeer.

Project credits:

Project architect: Herzog & de Meuron
Partners: Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger
Project team: Michael Fischer, Alexander Franz, Salomé Gutscher, Nathalie Birkhäuser, Alen Guberinic, Emmanuel Guilloux, Vasilis Kalisperakis, Beatus Kopp, Aron Lorincz, Christian Schmitt, Eric Stutz, André Vergueiro, Miriam Waltz, Christoph Wassmann, Romy Weber
Artist: Erik Steinbrecher
Construction management: B+P Baurealisation
Electrical engineering: Pro Engineering
HVAC engineering: Waldhauser + Hermann
Landscape design: Hager Partner
Plumbing engineering: BLM-Haustechnik
Structural engineering: Schnetzer Puskas
Cost consultant: B+P Baurealisation
Acoustics: Martin Lienhard Bauund Raumakustik
Building physics: Zimmermann + Leuthe

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Coarse concrete walls encase this house by Wespi de Meuron Romeo Architetti, which overlooks Switzerland's Lake Maggiore from a wooded site sunken down below street level (+ slideshow).

The firm designed Casa Dem for one of its three directors, Jérôme de Meuron, his wife Paola and their seven-year-old child.

It is set into a steep slope beside the architects' studio in Caviano – a region on the eastern shoreline of Lake Maggiore.

Two of the building's three storeys sit below street level. When approached from the road, the house appears to be just one storey tall, but from the valley below its tall narrow form is revealed.

Deep square windows cut in the building's craggy concrete walls let light into the internal courtyards that bracket the two upper floors.

"The polygonal exterior shape and the steep topography of the site let the building appear as an archaic stone block in middle of the forest," said the studio.

"This is reinforced by the rough washed concrete surfaces becoming darker by the weathering," said Wespi, de Meuron and Romeo.

"To the mountain-sided street, the construction presents itself as a closed, simple one-storey volume," they added. "To the valley side, the house appears as a narrow three-storey tower."

The building has an irregular pentagonal form that was dictated by planning restrictions, which stated minimum distances from a nearby forest, road and neighbouring property.

"The building laws determined the outer form of the building, what often happens when leftover plots are developed," explained the architects.

Living areas are largely arranged within a rectangular portion of the plan, while courtyards and loggias are dotted around the perimeter.

The top floor of the house is used as the primary living area. The rough concrete walls of the room are decorated with paintings and sculptures by Jérôme de Meuron and Hanspeter Wespi.

The living space connects directly with the street via a flagstone courtyard, which features a small seating area built into the wall. Cutaways in the outer wall offer residents views of the surrounding vegetation.

A second courtyard on the other side of the living space faces onto the back of the property.

"The inner courtyard on the seaside releases the view to the lake and the mountains through a big roofed opening; while its closed wall surfaces reflect the sunlight to the inside," said the architects.

"Both courtyards, each with a wisteria, let the living room become a garden room and let the inhabitants experience the varying atmospheres of the weather and the light in an unusual intense way."

A skylight is situated above the chunky concrete staircase that connects the three floors, allowing light to penetrate to the lower level.

The first floor, entirely hidden from the street, faces out towards the forest and lake. Here, two bedrooms are ventilated by angular loggias, while a cellar and workshop are located in the base of the structure.

Photography is by Hannes Henz.

Project credits:

Architects: Wespi de Meuron Romeo Architects
Engineer: de Giorgi & Partners
Building physics: IFEC Ingegneria
Master builder: Canonica
Windows: Morotti
Plasterer: Paolucci
Joiner: Romeo Buss
Furniture design: Wespi de Meuron Romeo Architects
Fittings: Superplan Kaldewei, Pro, Architec, Emporio Via Manzoni, Arwa Twin, Sanitär Tröesch

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Architect Pierre-Alain Dupraz chose exposed concrete for this cross-shaped kindergarten and crèche in Switzerland, giving it an austere appearance (+ slideshow).

Located in a town on the shoreline of Lake Geneva, Kindergarten and Crèche in Prangins is made up from four rectilinear volumes that overlap at one end to give the building a crucifix-shaped plan.

Geneva-based Dupraz selected this form to help diminish the scale of the building, helping to lessen its impact on its surroundings.

Three of the four volumes are embedded into the lower level of the sloping site, while the fourth is elevated on a concrete wall to create a porch over the building's glazed entrance.

Reinforced concrete provides the structure, and is left exposed both inside and out.

The architect envisioned the building as "one big house" rather than a school, taking a similar approach to Japanese studios Rhythmdesign and Case-Real in their creation of domestic-scale rooms for a nursery in Kumamoto.

Two classrooms are located in each of the three lower volumes, while the elevated block contains the crèche.

"The new Prangins kindergarten is conceived as one big house that has been placed on a sloping site," said Dupraz.

"The cruciform structure resulting from the interlocking volumes allows it to have a special relationship with the neighbouring ensemble."

"The four volumes, which are mutually staggered by a third of each unit's floor height and interleaved, make the building appear to be smaller and visually less obtrusive," he continued.

The concrete-lined classrooms are furnished simply with wooden tables and chairs, alongside neutral-toned textiles.

Large windows positioned in the ends and flanks of the blocks are close to ground level, offering a child's-eye view of the grassy grounds. The large windows and skylights allow natural sunlight into the heart of the building, casting dramatic patches of light and shadow across the concrete corridors and staircases.

"The natural qualities of the location are highlighted by the different alignment of the large window openings, since the design paid great attention to visual relationships with respect to their placement," explained the architects.

The staircases and ramps that link the building's varying levels sit at the axis of the four forms, forming a "fundamental, structure element", according to the team.

The creche wing can be accessed internally through this staircase or from the exterior at the highest level of the site, allowing it to operate independently from the kindergarten. This single open-plan space can be also subdivided into smaller units if required.

Photography is by Thomas Jantscher.

Project credits:

Project architects: Nicola Chong, Frederico Vieira
Project team: Julian Behrens, Maxime Beljansky, Kira Graf, Paolo Marchiori, Pierre Mencacci
Client: Commune de Prangins

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Swiss architecture firm Bureau A has created Steelhenge: a recreation of the prehistoric English stone circle built from 50 shipping containers.

For the first edition of the biennale for independent art spaces in Geneva, BIG, local firm Bureau A was commissioned to create an open air venue that would function as a space for attendees to congregate.

Constructed using 50 blue shipping containers, the circular arrangement of Steelhenge is based on the concentric layout of Neolithic monument Stonehenge.

"We like to work with references, displacement or even direct quotes," Bureau A's Leopold Banchini told Dezeen.

"In this case, the ruins of Stonehenge and the pagan rituals that it evokes seemed like an interesting landscape relating to the disappearing alternative and squat culture in Geneva."

The steel containers were placed side by side to recreate the outer circle of monoliths. To echo the taller structures of the Wiltshire monument, pairs of containers have been stood on end to support horizontally-placed units.

"The biennale was only organised for a long weekend," Banchini added. "With a restricted budget, we had to go for a fast and easily reusable material: the container."

Others have also taken advantage of shipping containers' ease of use. Pedro Barata e Arquitetos Associados used them to build a 12-metre-tall periscope in Brazil, and CRG Architects proposed replacing slum housing with skyscrapers built from stacks of the containers.

"Containers are a symbol at the new globalised economy; it was also interesting to replace the stones of the original monument by these steel box," said Banchini.

The entire structure was built in a day using a crane, with concrete blocks used to add weight to each container, and reinforce their stability.

Gallery participants in the biennale, which ran from 26 to 28 June 2015, were then given the opportunity to customise the interior of each of the containers.

More design with shipping containers is collected together on Dezeen's dedicated Pinterest board.

Photography is by Dylan Perrenoud.

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Caruso St John Architects has unveiled plans for a new £160 million biomedical laboratory at University of Basel, Switzerland, which features a gridded glass facade and a concrete base with arch-shaped notches.

The firm saw off competition from studios including David Chipperfield Architects with its proposal for the 35,000-square-metre building, which contains six floors of laboratories.

Hollows in the concrete base of the Department of Biomedicine will form entrances and make sure the building clears a footpath. The upper storeys will be covered in a panes of glass measuring 80 by 80 centimetres, providing views into the laboratories.

"The large volume of the new building for biomedicine is uniformly covered with a skin of cast glass," said a statement issued by the studio. "The glass is transparent and clear and it allows all workstations an unobstructed view. But the glass is also thick, which corresponds to the curved details and its rounded corners."

The building will be attached to the university's pharmaceutical centre in the St Johann district of the city.

It will replace the institution's existing laboratory and teaching building, and stand on a site near other medical science departments and university hospitals.

Aside from testing laboratories, areas of the building will be dedicated as offices, conference rooms, and for keeping rats and mice.

It will host 70 research groups specialising in oncology, immunology, neuroscience, stem cells and regenerative medicine.

An inner layer of pigmented glass will sit behind the building's gridded facade, designed to cast subtly coloured reflections.

Curving glass walls will enclose stairwells, while corrugated glazing will surround offices and laboratories. The project is due to complete in 2022.

Caruso St John Architects recently converted a row of theatre warehouses into a gallery for British artist Damien Hirst, and completed the third and largest of the Gagosian's outposts in London. Previously, the firm undertook a £45 million renovation of the Tate Britain.

Renderings are by Caruso St John Architects.

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Italian architect Stefano Boeri has revealed designs for a plant-covered 36-storey tower in Lausanne, Switzerland, continuing the "vertical forest" concept he trialled with a pair of towers in Milan (+ slideshow).

According to Boeri, the building in the Chavannes-Près-Renens district of the city will be the first tower in the world to be covered with evergreen trees.

The predominantly residential 117-metre-tall building will contain apartments ranging in size from two to five bedrooms, as well as offices, a gym and a panoramic restaurant on its top floor.

Renderings released by Boeri's Milan studio today show facades comprising projecting terraces that are faced with reinforced concrete panels.

The roofs of these boxes accommodate plants including the coniferous trees that give the project its name, La Tour des Cedres, or The Cedar Trees Tower.

As with Boeri's Bosco Verticale buildings in Milan, the intention is that the leaves of the trees will help to trap fine dust, absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen to improve the city's air quality.

"With the Tower of Cedar Trees we will have the opportunity to realise a plain building that will have a great role in the Lausanne landscape," said Boeri in a statement. "An architecture even able to introduce a significant biodiversity of vegetal species in the middle of an important European city."

"The Tower, also thanks to its shape and the changing colours of cedar trees and plants during the seasons, could become a landmark in the panorama of Lake Geneva," the architect added.

"This will make Lausanne a cutting-edge city in the global challenge to implement urban quality together with sustainability and biodiversity."

Alongside 100 cedar trees, 6,000 shrubs and 18,000 plants will also contribute to green surfaces totalling approximately 3,000 square metres. Cedar was chosen because of its longevity and ability to withstand severe climatic conditions.

Stefano Boeri Architetti was awarded the project after seeing off competition from international firms including Mario Botta Architetto, Richter Dahl Rocha & Associés Architectes and Goettsch Partners.

The studio collaborated with Buro Happold Engineering on structural details and with Italian agronomist Laura Gatti on the planting concept. Construction is due to commence in 2017.

Boeri is one of several architects to combine plants and architecture in recent years. French architect Jean Nouvel teamed up with botanist Patrick Blanc to create a pair of plant-covered towers in Sydney, while a holiday resort in Vietnam by Vo Trong Nghia features concrete louvers that support climbing plants on its facades.

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Berlin studio Baumhauer has renovated a traditional farmhouse in the Swiss hamlet of Florins, inserting a timber structure that contains new living areas in place of an existing barn (+ slideshow).

The farmhouse is typical of vernacular architecture in Switzerland's Engadine valley. It originally incorporated residential spaces towards the front, where it faces the village centre, and an area for agricultural purposes at the rear.

Baumhauer focused on expanding the existing residential programme into the redundant barn at the back of the building in a way that is sympathetic to its historic fabric.

The barn's original floor was removed to make room for a three-storey structurally independent timber volume that sits within the existing stone walls.

The wooden addition interrupts the otherwise homogenous white-rendered facades. Its proportions match those of a balconied structure that projects from the rear elevation of the adjoining building.

"The typical local motif of deep window reveals in thick exterior walls has been adopted and exaggerated, signifying the alterations inside," the architects explained in a statement.

"With their sharp-edged detailing, these few large window openings stand out in contrast to the existing architecture."

Rough-sawn untreated larch was chosen for the exterior elements to reference the region's traditional agricultural structures. Its surfaces will gradually weather and age, helping the building to blend into its context.

Inside, a double-height living room that extends up to the roofline is lined with larch wood, creating a continuous surface that emphasises the impressive dimensions of the space.

"The design allows the historical large volume of the barn to remain legible despite the changes," the architects added.

The timber structure also accommodates four additional rooms, including a double bedroom and bathroom on the upper storey, and a smaller single room next to the living area.

A corridor that extends the length of the house connects its original living spaces with the timber-lined insert.

From the front entrance area, the transition between old and new areas is marked by the change from traditional wooden floorboards to the larch surfaces.

A sliding glass door at the rear of the new living space looks out onto the adjacent hillside and connects this space with a balcony that projects from the facade.

The rest of the house was extensively refurbished, including an elaborately panelled dining room and a neighbouring kitchen with a vaulted roof.

Architect Philipp Baumhauer's previous projects include a glass and steel poolhouse in Munich and a wooden folly with mirrored shutters in the mountains of southern Germany.

British studio Snook Architects has also converted a former barn into a home featuring exposed wooden trusses, while a barn in Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture was transformed by Kichi Architectural Design into a home with a mezzanine below its four-metre-high ceiling.

Photography is by Ralph Feiner.

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This data storage centre in Basel has a ridged shell of both perforated and solid steel panels, designed by Ffbk Architects to offer fragmented reflections of the sky and surroundings (+ slideshow).

The Datacube was designed by local studio FFBK Architects for communications and entertainment firm Quickline and is situated in the Münchenstein district to the south of the Swiss city.

The three-storey building houses servers and data storage devices for corporate IT and cloud computing applications. According to the architects, it is the "most advanced data storage centre in Switzerland".

Ffbk Architects created a monolithic concrete and steel structure to contain 2,500 square metres of storage. A planned basement was rejected as it could have been compromised by the building's proximity to the Birs river.

The simple cubic form features external walls made from insulated sandwich panels. Its facades are entirely clad in reflective steel panels with trapezoidal steel sections that create a homogenous ridged surface.

"The concept of reflection as the metaphor of data reflecting our society’s cultural change has led to a mirroring facade, preventing all intrusive views from the outside world," said the architects in a project description.

"The monolith reflects the immediate surroundings and the sky on its stainless steel cladding," they added. "The statement of this compact building seems quite abstract in this rural neighbourhood."

In areas where windows are integrated into the elevations, perforated metal was used on the facade. It allows some light to enter and permits partial views out, while limiting views into the building.

The arrangement of alternating solid and perforated sections disrupts the uniformity of the reflective surfaces and creates a subtly shifting stripy pattern that animates the facades.

A metal fence surrounding the facility adds to its nondescript appearance, contributing to the sense of security. Planting alongside this fence offers a natural contrast to the building's otherwise industrial design.

The data centre's interior incorporates an office, break area and meeting rooms on the ground floor, with the technical spaces occupying the upper levels. Red flooring introduces a brightly coloured detail inside the building and a black suspended metal ceiling diffuses the lighting positioned above it.

Sustainability was an important factor in the design. The overall energy consumption of the building is just 10 kilowatts per square metre.

Other examples of technical facility designs include a concrete and steel bunker that stores the British Film Institute's entire film collection and an engineering research facility in Hungary.

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