Community center, Innertkirchen, 2009
Competition

The new Innertkirchen community center presents itself as an incisive, crystalline volume that offers a contemporary interpretation on wooden shingle cladding. Thanks to its crystalline form, it is both apparent and well integrated into the landscape and existing place, marking the center of the town.

The two-story building is spatially organized around a central circulation core. The principal rooms, the info center and its foyer, the grocery store, and the multimedia room on the first floor, occupy the three corners of the building. The sloping roof of the crystalline form is spatially activated by precisely positioned sky lights that frame views of the three surrounding mountain peaks.

The crystalline volume, which sits upon a light concrete base, will be clad with wooden shingles. This traditional and durable construction method will be newly interpreted by employing digital design and fabrication tools. Blurry horizontal stratifications will be created on the façade by adjusting the length of each shingle, emphasizing the strict crystal geometry. A tried and trusted building method thus gains a new architectural expression and reinforces the town’s unchangeable identity.

Credits:
Gramazio Kohler Architects, Zurich

Client: Interessensgemeinschaft Dorfzentrum Innertkirchen
Collaborators: Peter Heckeroth (project lead), Gabriel Cuéllar, Raffael Gaus, Boris Gusic
Selected experts: Schweingruber Zulauf (landscape architecture)