Werkstatt für Architektur — Zürich & Lisbon
We build heavy things that hold light. Concrete, timber, and the smallest possible number of moves.
Monolith
Discipline
Architecture, interiors, and the details in between
Studio
Eleven people, one model shop, no renderings bought in
Method
Draw it full size before anybody pours anything
Position
Abuilding should be readable from the street in one sentence, and still unfold for twenty years once you are inside it. That is the whole brief. We work slowly, cast our own samples, and refuse the drawing that only works in a photograph.
Read the studio charterSelected work
Hover a rowOne poured mass, cut by a single slot of daylight from ridge to floor.
How we work
Four stages, and nobody skips one.
- I
Concept & massing
Site reading, volume studies, and a written position before a single plan is drawn.
- II
Material research
Sample panels cast, burned, and weathered in the yard until one of them earns the job.
- III
Technical drawing
Full construction sets, joinery details, and tolerances a builder can actually hold.
- IV
Site stewardship
We stay on the drawing through to handover — the detail is the design.
Material library
Board-formed concrete
Pine boards leave their grain in the pour.
Charred oak
Burned, brushed, oiled, then left alone.
Patinated brass
Handles that record every hand that used them.
Low-iron glass
Clear enough that the frame disappears.