Elephant Park

Elephant Park is a design for an elephant house with inner and outer spaces as extension to the Zurich zoo. The design maximizes visitor experiences though undulating layout in the landscape. The Elephant Park negotiates a series of programmatic constraints based on the nature of designing for elephants and humans alike, moving away from the classic separation of exhibit and observer.

Conceived as an environment the Park exploits human-elephant contacts in a maximum of ways. A diagram of the “Vitruvian Elephant” in analogy to Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing examines the range and reach of animals to derive a set of key proportions. Translated into a parametric model this diagram is applied to all zones of overlap between human and elephant spaces. In order to maximize these overlaps all spaces follow a loose organic geometry. As a result, visitors can observe the animals from closest possible distances and from all angles, without visual barriers.

Far from being a simple extrusion in plan, the scheme gently drapes down the hillside. Visitors stroll over the grass roof landscaped as savannah to peek through termite mound-shaped light funnels. Pathways encompass all exterior elephant ranges and reconnect to lead visitors inside where the same diagram regulates the experience. Linking two different scalar economies (human / elephant) the system constantly adapts to differentiate moments of architectural specificity.

Authors: Aurel von Richthofen
with Rushabh Parekh, Scott Kittle, Josh Lawrence, Anthony Prousi, Matt Canterna

Place: Zurich, Switzerland
Year: 2008
Size: 4000 m2
Type: Competition
Client: Zoo Zurich

Sucre Glace

Sucre-glace is an compact ice-rink and sports stadium in the Swiss village of St.Cergues, located in the Jura mountains close to Geneva. The envelope is a consists of an inflated membrane and wooden space-frame.

Nouvelle Comédie

Nouvelle Comédie is a competition design for a new classic and contemporary theater and opera house in Geneva, Switzerland. Nouvelle Comédie is a hybrid. For the sake of programmatic flexibility all main spaces are organized on one horizontal plane. Acoustic requirements on stage and seating given, constrained by the site, the resulting form is a simple massing diagram. Thus the section resembles Antoine de St. Exuperie’s hat-turned-elephant-eating-snake drawing from the Little Prince. The architectural exploration is bound to the thin layer of the facade. The skin necessarily becomes the mediating surface of this project.

Splügen Rest Stop

Splügen is a landscape project located in the Upper Rhine Valley in Switzerland using parametrically designed “fins” to engage the river and manipulate the fluvial landscape. The Upper Rhine Valley is characterized by its pristine alpine ecology, yet, contrasted with a mayor highway connecting Germany and Italy running through it.

New Bouwkunde

New Bouwkunde is a radical design for a new school of architecture at Technical University of Delft. The program called for more than 2000 spaces. These were organized algorithmically and optimized for spatial efficiency. Study, project and research within a school of architecture are normally shaped by an intimate relationship of scholars and students within a tight educational community. Not at Delft where the sheer number of more than 5000 students of architecture outgrow any sense of personal scale.

School Vevey

School Vevey is a design for an secondary school in the town of Vevey on the shore of lake Geneva including three sport halls, student restaurant, library, auditorium and 70 class rooms.

Lausanne Housing

The housing scheme Fiche Nord in Lausanne comprises two residential buildings connected via an underground plinth and garage. The setting on the sloping terrain North of Lausanne overlooking lake Geneva is spectacular. The volumetric shift in the facade exploits this view. Each buildings contains 7 apartment types of various sizes.