Swiss cheese quality seal

Baumschlager Eberle Architekten have created a family home in Vaduz that is tantamount to a bravura performance: it impresses with its spatial, material and craftsmanship quality, creates a balance between privacy and openness and makes a statement.

Located right on the border with Switzerland, Vaduz, the capital of the Principality of Liechtenstein, is home to a house that is – to put it bluntly – the perfection of Swiss cheese. Cheese from Switzerland is unique, stands for quality and intensity, has character – and sometimes holes. The house by Baumschlager Eberle Architekten, completed in 2020, has these holes and qualities. It is a cubic volume with clear edges, angular openings and selected materials.

In their design, Baumschlager Eberle Architekten focused on an old copper beech and played with hidden open spaces – just as the client wanted. They attached great importance to a balance between privacy and openness.

The entire architecture is well-balanced and harmoniously designed: Every window is purposefully placed, every incision has its own symbiotic justification and every spatial effect is deliberately provoked. Architectural elements shape the volume from the outside in a floating yet heavy way. The interior reflects the simple and characteristic material language as well as the high-quality craftsmanship: oak wood, untreated concrete and light-colored plaster form a down-to-earth and at the same time exquisite triad.

The element of heaviness and weight also finds its aesthetic place in the interior: the rhythmizing concrete box ceiling in particular has an oppressive and heavy effect, spans rooms without supports and creates space when placed on the window lintel. It is a design trick that intensifies the space. The 346 square meter house is a statement for contemporary single-family homes, a subtle further development of classic villa architecture.

With its selected materials and highly efficient energy concept, Baumschlager Eberle Architekten are also making a statement for sustainable building. Insulating bricks made of pure clay reduce energy losses to a minimum and generate a high storage mass with concrete ceilings. The house stores solar energy gains and ensures a pleasant indoor climate even in summer. Monolithic masonry, resource-saving thickness of the concrete ceilings, lime plaster, natural building materials and the absence of insulating materials as far as possible are the ecological contribution, the icing on the cake of the architecture.

More villa architecture? Also take a look at the villa by LRO Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei.