Hall ­houses in Winterthur

The former supermarket in the Rosenberg residential area in Winterthur was vacant for a number of years after a shopping center had opened in its vicinity. The building code only offered little flexibility for floor area increase and use conversion of the flat roof commercial building completed in 1961 into a multi-family residential structure. Despite this fact, the architects and their project developer subsidiary DN2M created five housing units with 140 to 180 m2 within the existing building envelope and a setback rooftop addition comprised of prefabricated wood panel construction. Viewed from the exterior, it resembles a compact, simple form; but in its interior, the building features a complex structure of spaces. The former sales floor with its clear room height of four meters constitutes the central kitchen, dining, and living space of each unit. Rooms surround it in a split-level system.