Atelier Gados

project: direct comission, 2009-2010
location: Muttenz, Switzerland
construction: 2010-2011
team: Christoph Jantos, Jeronimo Mejia, Annette Fromm
structure: ZPF Ingenieure AG - Sali Sadikaj, Nico Ros
photography: Eik Frenzel, Philomene Hoel

Atelier Gados is a workshop of a Basel couturiere and designer situated in the green foothills of the Jura mountains in the outskirts of Basel. The client wished to have both a new autonomous workshop with versatile spaces for designing, production and presenting and at the same time a seamless connection to her existing house and living spaces: A spatial flexibility would accommodate the future transformation of her family structure when the kids would slowly move out.
As a response to to client’s desire of a dual relationship between the private and the public spaces of her studio and her home, and the small available space to build on a steep hillside site, a cantilevering volume is inserted into the existing retaining wall of the house (built in the 1960s).
This precise single intervention offers multiple solutions: it maintains the workshop’s autonomy through its different architectural language from the residential surrounding and signalizes the public character of the studio. Through its large 7m overhang, it carves out a separate entry with a fully glazed store-front like space for display and reception with a small fitting room and bathroom. Connected by a stair, the workshop above is an intimate and contemplative space for designing and the making. It is embraced by unparalleled massive walls with window-openings that frame different views of the scenic landscape. This trapezoidal shaped space derives from the response to connect the workshop to the existing house - the old to the new - as desired by the seamstress. This link is made by a sequence of sliding doors from the new spaces through to the existing rooms: An enfilade of rooms allows for fluid and yet controllable connection.

Modulor: 03/2012
Architekturpreis Beton 2013