A large central void connects the different floors via a series of cross-laminated timber terraces. In this way, a sequence of communal spaces—both on and beneath the terraces—facilitates spontaneous interaction among users. The atrium acts as a large heat exchanger, enabling natural air exchange; roof vents allow for natural ventilation during the spring and summer months.

The program is organized around four vertical circulation cores and a series of corridors surrounding the atrium. The ground floor houses the most public spaces; the garden, first, and second floors contain all the classrooms; and the top floor is home to the faculty areas and faculty offices.

Structurally, the project employs a hybrid system consisting of a cast-in-place concrete grid structure and a series of prefabricated cross-laminated timber (CLT) elements—staircases and vertical panels—that define the building’s interior. The industrialization of the process allowed work to proceed simultaneously on-site and in the workshop, shortening construction timelines. This duality is also evident on the façade, where the exterior wooden joinery is assembled onto the structure. The order of the structural grid is occasionally disrupted by the introduction of a series of composite-section Vierendeel beams, located on alternate floors, which free up column-free, more open spaces housing the main auditorium, the entrance lobby, and classrooms with movable partitions.

In addition to the large energy chimney, which forms the central atrium, a series of vertical elements are incorporated to house ventilation and air supply for the classrooms, avoiding horizontal ducts and the need for drop ceilings, with the mechanical systems and acoustic panels left exposed.

Text provided by the architects.

The continuity and thickness of the envelope take advantage of the material’s thermal mass to moderate climatic fluctuations, delaying heat gain and generating more stable interior conditions. In this way, the material works in concert with the climate, reducing dependence on artificial systems while reinforcing an introspective mode of dwelling.

The morphology of the volume responds directly to the organisational scheme of the house. The elevated portion accommodates the children’s bedrooms on the first floor and, above them, the main bedroom on the second floor, the only room that engages the landscape from that height. At the opposite end of the volume are the service spaces and the elements that define the kitchen. Between these two poles unfolds the social core of the house.

A screen of perforated concrete blocks completes the system, filtering light, views, and ventilation. Rather than denying the exterior, it distances and mediates it, providing shade and privacy.

Thus, the material not only responds to environmental and structural imperatives, but also actively contributes to the construction of a domestic intimacy that stands in contrast to the idealised transparency of the surrounding landscape.

Text provided by the architects.

The name “findling” holds a dual meaning in German: both “orphan” and “glacial erratic.” Architect Vincent Appel borrowed the term after a visiting philosopher friend identified the supporting stones as findlings. Literally, the home is built atop four such boulders, their mass holding the structure lightly above the land. Metaphorically, the term expresses a process of emotional restoration and rediscovery—an architectural effort intended to heal and reset the clients’ relationship to this site and to the act of building itself.

From the approach, the home appears to float just above the terrain. A slender stainless-steel stair—the project’s “third space”—descends from the structure, bridging the distance between forest floor and elevated platform. Doors and stairs typically provide the minimum articulation between inside and out; here, the stair is designed to expand that threshold into a heightened perceptual experience. Engineered through finite-element digital analysis, the stair is reduced to its thinnest possible expression, reading as neither of the earth nor of the building. Custom-perforated treads and a ribbon-like handrail introduce unfamiliar yet tactile cues, encouraging awareness that one is stepping from the familiar path in the woods into something intentionally other.

Rather than an exterior entry sequence terminating at a front door, visitors arrive directly into the center of the house, entering through its heart to communicate the feeling of an embrace. The plan is symmetrical yet varied in spatial experience. Two compact bedrooms and one bath occupy the corners—each with a large fixed window and operable wooden shutters—recalling the scale and spirit of a treehouse bunk. The central living and dining space expands outward with floor-to-ceiling glass, creating an alternating rhythm of compression and release inspired by regional mountaineering lodges and backcountry cabins.

Materially, the house is elemental and singular. The structure is built almost entirely from larch harvested from nearby forests, chosen for its durability, warmth, economy, and spiritual clarity. To minimize complexity and material footprint, windows are mulled directly into solid larch jambs and glazed on site. Portions of the wall pivot open for ventilation, eliminating the need for mechanical hardware or framed openings. Opening a window becomes not a technical mechanism but a physical gesture—an intimate act of participation with climate and landscape.

Half of the building rests on a historic New England stone wall likely constructed between 1770 and 1830 when the land was first cleared for farming. Now buried within the forest, these walls are quiet artifacts of regional history, tying the retreat into a continuum of habitation.

Throughout the interior, details are guided by restraint: the kitchen island is carved from a single block of Vermont Verde serpentine quarried in Barre, Vermont—the same quarry that supplied Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building planters. Its deep green veining was left unpolished to feel like a fragment of hillside drifted indoors. Door and shutter hardware fabricated by Ize reinterprets Le Corbusier’s La Tourette monastery handles, here cast in stainless steel to match the home’s material palette.

The Findling is both dwelling and transformation. Resting on ancient stones, lifted by the lightness of wood, and reached through a suspended metal passage, it is less an addition to the land than a rediscovery of it—an architecture designed to move perception from the subliminal to the supraliminal, inviting an emotional relationship with place.

Text provided by the architects.

Simple timber-lined spaces provide the basics for living oriented toward the outdoors. A small open fireplace with a garden view offers reprieve from the coastal winds in one space. With a long foot-to-foot single-level bunk trimmed in tarnished brass in another room, colloquially referred to as the ship’s cabin.

Furnished with soft open-weave natural linens, woven surfaces, timbers, and a collection of books and found objects, the spaces speak to a calm beach holiday and are designed to actively combat the ever-present assault from the sand.

The bathrooms are approached with a rigour in simplicity, a direct response to the trials that beach house wet areas are put through. A heavy-gauge galvanised steel trough forming a deep vanity surrounded by a simple white porcelain tiles in one, and a shallow stainless steel wash plane cut into the textured mosaic tiles of the other.

This small building project slowly developed its own quiet, individual, and curious architectural language that appears throughout in subtle moments and details. It’s timber/ steel/ glass, come bushfire regulation inspired ( ehhe), window solution fronts a very raw, warm, and friendly place. It is a lovely project to have authored and one that will age and grow into its landscape in the years to come.

Text provided by the architects.

The intervention is carried out on a former stable and hayloft linked to a pre-existing dwelling, now conceived as an autonomous piece within the ensemble. The building is redefined as a pavilion for collective use, without a fixed program or permanent occupation, capable of hosting gatherings, celebrations, and a variety of activities. This programmatic indeterminacy is key to the building’s rehabilitation, as it allows the technical performance to be adjusted to a real and flexible use, avoiding processes of regularization or over-technification that would have substantially altered its constructive character. Natural ventilation, filtered light, and environmental variation become active components of the architectural experience.

Reading the building as a constructive palimpsest is one of the project’s points of departure. The masonry walls, the different types of openings, and the superimposed structural solutions reveal a construction that has evolved progressively over time. Rather than concealing these traces, the intervention incorporates them as an essential part of the building’s identity, understanding the existing architecture as a structure open to transformation, capable of accommodating new uses without losing the memory of its previous processes.

The roof concentrates the project’s main constructive operation. A structural solution is proposed that fully frees the interior space, avoiding trusses and intermediate supports. A ridge beam integrating a stainless-steel tie working in tension allows a span of up to 15 meters to be bridged. From this beam spring the timber joists, which bear directly on the longitudinal load-bearing walls and on the ridge beam itself, configuring a structural system that is clear, legible, and consistent with the character of the existing building. The system dispenses with superfluous layers, leaving the underside of the tiles exposed to the interior, so that the construction process itself becomes fully intelligible and participates in the spatial definition of the pavilion.

In this context, the roof becomes an interface mediating between a controlled environment and the natural conditions of the site. The tile ceases to function as a finishing element and assumes a central role in the construction of space, acting both as a device that shapes atmosphere and as a support for incorporating the temporal variable into the architectural experience.

The incorporation of continuous surfaces of glass tiles within the same roofing system introduces variations of light and transparency that construct a vibrant, changing sky, reinforcing the intermediate condition of the space between interior and exterior. The limestone cobblestone pavement, treated as an exterior ground surface, links the building to the surrounding karst landscape and helps to blur the boundaries between enclosure and immediate context.

The project thus proposes a form of rehabilitation based on constructive precision and conceptual clarity, in which the intervention does not seek to correct or homogenize what exists, but to activate its spatial and environmental potential. Architecture acts as a mediator between matter and light, between past and present, proposing an open, flexible space capable of accommodating new forms of collective use through an attentive and respectful reading of the built fabric.

Text provided by the architects.

A politically committed and militant project!

Today, the unsealed plot and green roof of the pavillon host an incredible diversity of plant, animal and funghi species. A unfiltered, 12 metre long pond, that is over 2 meters deep, connects the wild northern and southern parts of the garden. The roof is covered by another garden, which is slightly less wild, and more focused on food production. In winter, the house itself orients around a large fireplace, which‘s chimneys comically long shape responds to the legal exhaust distances in the dense urban environment. In summer, it opens to the pond and gardens.

The creation of a complex habitat, that enables a species rich environment to thrive, is the main purpose of the design.

Text provided by the architects.

The compact volume, conceived through a passive design strategy to reduce the building’s energy demand, organizes the overall layout. On the access side, it defines a public square; on the other sides, it encloses the more private areas that make up the nursery school spaces: the south-facing classroom patios, the shared patio to the east, and the service strip located on the northern side.
A central courtyard promotes cross ventilation and the entry of natural light. This void creates a new educational space that, while outdoors, is protected from the wind. Its visibility from all interior spaces facilitates supervision and control of the children.
Solar control is optimized through the classroom porch and the incorporation of vegetation within the courtyard. Cross ventilation is planned both in plan and section, enhanced by large openings on the south-facing façades and smaller, higher openings on the northern façade.
The construction adopts a sequence of vaults that evoke the primal sense of shelter through their concave form. The structural system is organized through the repetition, in each bay, of a curved profile made of laminated timber beams. The building is modulated into six bays, each seven meters wide. These beams naturally resolve the slope of the roof. The ceramic roof highlights the path of rainwater. Just as the façade guides the entry of light, the roof shapes the itinerary of water, so that rain ceases to be a mere residue.
This spatial configuration gives rise to a warm and sheltered interior, generating a welcoming atmosphere for early childhood—a place that embraces, protects, and conveys calm.
The building is organized into three longitudinal strips. A central courtyard acts as the heart of the building, arranging the rooms around a continuous circulation. This space not only hosts children but also educates them. Constructive honesty, based on exposing structures, textures, and natural materials—without superfluous finishes or additive layers—turns the space into a didactic support. Matter becomes legible and tangible: what children see and touch explains how the building is constructed.
The impact on natural resources is reduced through the use of materials with a low environmental footprint, both during construction and throughout the building’s life cycle, prioritizing efficient construction systems, materials with controlled life cycles, and passive strategies.
Thermal mass is concentrated in elements in contact with the ground, such as concrete slabs, stone walls, and brick masonry. The roof, more exposed to solar radiation, is resolved as a lightweight, ventilated system with low thermal inertia, whose light-coloured ceramic tiles reduces solar absorption in summer.
The building is supported by a set of active systems that enhance its efficient performance and reduce its environmental impact.
The architecture is based on four principles: a climatic response tailored to the context, high energy efficiency through passive strategies, the use of natural, local, low-impact materials, and efficient technology that supports the building without imposing itself.
The result is a kind and welcoming building, where form, construction, and use combine naturally, giving rise to a comprehensible and habitable space that seeks to integrate respectfully into the landscape.

Text provided by the architects.