Gold Winner of the Architecture & Design Collection Awards 2023
Nursing home Center Seewadel
Architecture
Healthcare Buildings
Architect / Designer:
blgp architekten ag
Studio:
blgp architekten ag
Copyright:
Claudia Luperto
Country:
Switzerland
Construction of the retirement and nursing home Zentrum Seewadel, Affoltern am Albis – general planning competition, 1st prize, completion 2023
The property is centrally located in Affoltern am Albis. The complicated course of the plot boundary as well as building boundary rights with the neighborhood create tight space conditions for a new building. In addition, the site has a storey-high slope in an east-west direction. The existing nursing home will be demolished and the library will be cleared. Due to the existing situation, the new building presents itself compactly as a solitaire. The differently polished outer edges of the volume react on the one hand to the situation and on the other hand follow the functions of the building. The inwardly laced “center” of the new building symbolizes the center of the new retirement home. This is where the public facilities are located: Entrance with reception, foyer with restaurant and café on the first floor, and living and dining rooms on the nursing floors. The openly designed rooms allow for flowing room transitions in an east-west direction with optimal lighting conditions.
The outdoor space is divided into two parts, with the green space accompanying the street in the east and the higher landscape in the west. Access to the building is along Obere Seewadelstrasse in the east, while in the west the common areas are designed for a wide variety of uses.
blgp architekten ag
blgp architects were founded in 2007 by Pinar Gönül and Lukas Bucher in Lucerne. Their buildings can be found in urban neighborhoods and villages, in places that have already experienced a structural imprint. They are a reflection of an intensive examination of the existing.
blgp architekten create spaces for living, formulate an architecture that is reserved and at the same time very explicit. Their buildings set – like keystones – decisive spatial and urban impulses.
Appropriateness of means, economy without being stingy – this restraint gives the buildings an amazing naturalness and closeness.
The presence of the facades and spaces is due to careful materialization. Wood, plaster, stone or metal: the liveliness of the materials makes the houses tangible. The buildings are well thought-out volumes, urbanistically, spatially and in their materialization. They never stand on their own, but seek dialogue.
