Speculative architecture

Viktoria Bosshard und Lucia Spörri worked on the Mattenhof neighbourhood in Kriens during the spring semester of 2025 in Studio Bessire/Winter und DU Studio as part of their master’s degree in architecture. The neighbourhood is a central location in the development strategy of the city of Kriens, Lucerne and the municipality of Horw and has undergone rapid development in recent years. The area, which was once rural and then used for industrial purposes, is to be transformed into a diverse, urban living space.

Viktoria Bosshard and Lucia Spörri explain their project

The two students write about their project:

The heart of the project is a spacious, partially open roof structure that acts as a connecting element. The roof spans the existing building structure and the tracks with the train station, connecting the extension of the Allmend and Bireggwald forests with the main urban axis up to the existing roundabout. The basement will be opened up and converted into a green space as a continuation of the forest. The existing infrastructure for motorized traffic will remain, with the roundabout becoming the central hub and connection to the surrounding residential and working districts. This will create a clear separation between pedestrian and car traffic, as well as a distinct hierarchy of public, semi-public, and private spaces, which can be traversed step by step and ultimately converge in the atrium. The ground floor, with commercial, restaurant, and other public uses, serves as a lively pedestrian zone and central main axis, while the upper floors are used as living space with private gardens for residents. The aim is to create a place of communal living where public and private spaces intertwine harmoniously. An architectural motif of the project is the “window to the courtyard” (a reference to Alfred Hitchcock’s film “Rear Window”), which symbolizes openness, insight, new social connections and reflects livable housing on a large scale.

Module: Focusproject SS25 Lecturers: Céline Bessire, Matthias Winter, Tina Küng, Steffen Hägele Assistant: João Moreira

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