Houses of the year 2021 – Fuhrimann Hächler wins

The Swiss architecture firm has won the “Houses of the Year 2021” competition with an extraordinary residential building in Zurich. At the eleventh award ceremony, a total of eight single-family homes from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were recognized by the jury.

Should German architects be worried? Of the nine prizes awarded for the “Houses of the Year 2021”, four went to Switzerland, three to Austria and only two to Germany. The awards ceremony took place yesterday at the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt am Main. But joking aside: the range of award-winning projects in this year’s eleventh edition of the competition covers a broad spectrum of building tasks that can be concealed behind the term “single-family home”. The award-winning buildings range from small cottages to full-blown villas. They are located in the high mountains, on industrial estates, in village settlements and in metropolitan residential areas.

The Swiss architecture firm AFGH Andreas Fuhrimann Gabrielle Hächler won the “House of the Year 2021” award. Their Alder House in Zurich is radical in terms of design. The architects are seeking nothing less than a new aesthetic expression for the bourgeois villa. In doing so, they are joining a proud architectural tradition and exploring new aesthetic boundaries for this type of building.

Fuhrimann and Hächler, whose love of the raw and unfinished pervades their entire oeuvre, pursue this approach with the utmost consistency in the winning project. The outer walls are made of a brick that is normally used for agricultural buildings. They let the mortar ooze out of the joints like a paste, so that it covers the façades like a net. What at first glance looks like carelessness is deliberately calculated: The relief formed by the mortar creates a subtle play of light and shadow. Beyond all discussions about the justification and sustainability of the single-family house, the jury recognized the courage of the Alder House for its remarkable and independent aesthetic concept.

The jury also recognized an outstanding architectural achievement in Studio Cascina Garbald by Armando Ruinelli, which received one of a total of seven awards. The small building serves as a residence for the Villa Garbald scholarship holders. The villa itself is the work of Gottfried Semper. The new building follows the local building tradition in terms of cubature and design language, but uses unplastered tamped concrete for all the walls. On the one hand, this choice of material creates a direct link to the surroundings through its colorfulness, but on the other hand also identifies it as a contemporary building. Where Fuhrimann and Hächler seek the raw, Ruinelli celebrates perfection. From the wonderful wooden ceilings to the lights designed by the architect, the design and craftsmanship of the project is outstanding.

Niklaus Graber & Christoph Steiger Architekten also received an award in the “Houses of the Year 2021” category for a residential and commercial building located in an industrial area near Lucerne. The jury recognized the architects’ efforts to create a place that offers a high quality of life in a heterogeneous and uninviting environment.

In contrast, the award-winning project by Hohengasser Wirnsberger Architekten is located in a largely natural landscape in Carinthia. The clients, a married couple, wanted a weekend house that respects this natural landscape and interferes with it as little as possible. The architects developed a minimalist wooden building for the clients that floats on pillars above the meadow on which it stands. The clients wanted it to have a camping-like feel. The small house impressively demonstrates that this does not have to be at odds with convincing architecture.

Equally close to nature, but in a completely different size and price segment, is a villa on Lake Wandlitz near Berlin, for which Thomas Kröger received an award in the “Houses of the Year 2021” competition. Kröger cleverly organizes the luxurious country house over several split-level floors, which are connected by a wide staircase. The building draws its charm from an interplay of rectangular and rounded shapes, giving the street side and the lake side very different faces.

Slightly smaller than Kröger’s house on the lake is another award-winning villa, a project by Wespi de Meuron Romeo, which is located in Klingnau, Switzerland. The most striking design feature of the building is a second façade, which the architects present on the hillside. While the inner façade is made almost entirely of glass, Wespi de Meuron Romeo had the outer façade constructed from rough concrete. This solid wall is perforated with irregularly distributed and differently sized square openings. While the concrete wall shields the residents from view and heat, the wall openings divide the view into different sections.

A conversion by Rüf Stasi Partner from Dornbirn in Austria convinced the jury of the “Houses of the Year 2021”. Using economical means, the architects succeeded in adapting a detached house from the 1930s to the needs of a young family. The most striking external change is a two-storey steel loggia that extends the rear of the house. It creates a versatile outdoor living space and also provides additional access to the upper floors.

Another classic family home also received an award in the “Houses of the Year 2021” competition. The project by Bathke Geisel Architekten is located in a village setting in the Munich area. The architects designed a simple single-family home with timber cladding that blends in sensitively with the architectural structure of the surroundings. The building impresses with its elegant proportions and restrained but finely crafted details.

Houses of the Year 2021: photography prize for Albrecht Imanuel Schnabel

A prize for architectural photography was awarded for the first time at Häuser des Jahres 2021. It was awarded to Austrian photographer Albrecht Imanuel Schnabel for his images of the “Der Einhof” project by LP architektur from Altenmark im Pongau.

All eight winning projects and 42 other buildings selected by the jury can be found in the book “Häuser des Jahres. The best single-family homes 2021”. Architectural journalist Katharina Matzig and actor Udo Wachtveitl, who also sat on the competition jury, collaborated on the book this year.

Find out which project is the “House of the Year 2020” here.

Udo Wachtveitl/Katharina Matzig:
Houses of the Year. The best single-family homes 2021
320 p., 450 color illustrations and plans
23 x 30 cm, hardcover
Munich: Callwey 2021
59,95 Euro
ISBN 978-3-7667-2530-1