Open Architecture Basel

Atelier Aires Mateus | Atelier Project USI Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio | 2020

My first approach to the city of Basel led me to focus on the green areas of the city, in particular on the area of Basel Landschaft, a real green lung at the city limits, which connects the urban center to the inland.

These green spaces, important in the general economy of the urban system of the city, are threatened by the strong building expansion of the city, which is progressively invading these green areas, suffocating and resizing these agricultural spaces.

In a context with these assumptions, my design process is based on enhancing these green areas by creating a limit / filter capable of blocking the expansion of the city and protecting these spaces, further enhancing their peculiarities.

The general idea is to work with regular volumes that develop around the green area of the fields, varying in number, size and thickness in response to the different conditions of the site.
The interiors vary in size and height, sometimes presenting openings to the outside and internal loggias for the passage and the various connections between internal spaces.

The blocks / volumes of the project are worked with the idea of digging, breaking down and roughing out large boulders placed around the perimeter of the project area, bringing massiveness and materiality to the project.

Finally, the project does not want to act as an insurmountable limit or closing wall, but rather wants to enhance the relationship of the building with its context, creating a new link between urban spaces and green spaces, proposing different and new spaces for sharing and knowledge of the context of the city of Basel and its important hinterland.