The Zurich district around Balgrist University Hospital is popular and densely built-up due to its proximity to the city center, good infrastructure and green urban surroundings. This is where "Karl" and "August" have recently joined the ranks - two new buildings with 55 high-quality 1½- to 4½-room apartments that have been built between the Karl-Stauffer-Strasse and August-Forel-Strasse.
Healthy indoor climate and high comfort
For this project, architects Widmer / de Montmollin, together with Xella Porenbeton Schweiz AG, opted for a special building material. The Ytong Thermobloc 08, which has been specially designed for monolithic masonry in multi-storey buildings. This made it possible to create a highly insulating monolithic masonry structure that ensures a healthy indoor climate and a high level of comfort. The apartments, ranging in size from 52 m² to 136 m², are equipped to a high standard and meet the latest energy requirements. In addition to Ytong Thermobloc 08, Ytong-P bricks were also used on the first floor to ensure the load-bearing capacity of the masonry. There are only a few building materials that function simultaneously as a complete load-bearing structure and insulating building envelope for facades - autoclaved aerated concrete is one of them.
Design freedom and recyclability
With their timeless architecture, the two apartment buildings fit in well with the neighborhood. When designing the urban apartments, the architects had a lot of freedom: Thanks to the ability to precisely cut the blocks, the planners were highly flexible in designing connections, corners or windows.
As monolithic masonry, Ytong offers also the advantage of being recyclable for future conversions and subsequent deconstruction. This is an advantage over other construction methods, where the building envelope is usually designed from several layers of different materials. These layers are often glued together and are therefore difficult to separate and recycle later.
Images Copyright: Widmer / de Montmollin Architects