Gardeners Home is a blue-stained timber and terracotta-brick construction in a park in Geneva, designed by structure studio Cupboard to supply workshops for gardeners and leisure house for locals.
Positioned close to a forest within the municipality of Thônex, the single-storey constructing is topped with a spherical gentle in a boxy lantern, supposed to assist it stand out.
“Surrounded by bushes, it might grow to be invisible, however its city place is at a strategic level on the crossroads of road and park paths, and our ambition was to make it a public constructing,” Cupboard founders Fanny Noël and Diogo Lopes informed Dezeen.
“All of this appeared like good causes to make the constructing extra seen and to mark its presence within the city house.”
When the lantern is turned on, it lights up the workshop inside and turns into a sign to the residents that the grounds’ gardeners are working.
“By integrating a lightweight moon that illuminates each inside and exterior, the inhabitants understand when their gardeners are current on website, making a dialogue between a airtight program and the environment,” mentioned Noël and Lopes.
The 205-square-metre Gardeners Home comprises a communal kitchen, shared leisure house and bathroom services accessed by one entrance, whereas one other results in two linked workshop areas.
A central corridor connects the workshops and public areas, in addition to an workplace and altering rooms.
“The principle operate of the constructing is a workshop for gardeners liable for the upkeep of the park, however we urged to the consumer to combine an even bigger kitchen and eating house with impartial entry that may very well be utilized by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood,” Noël and Lopes defined.
“They welcomed this concept, and we hope that occasions can occur sooner or later as it might stimulate a more in-depth relationship between the constructing and the group.”
Gardeners Home has a pleated exterior produced from blue-stained pine. One facade includes a water fountain on the centre and curves round a circle of planting.
Load-bearing terracotta-brick partitions assist 10-centimetre-thick concrete roof beams, that are left uncovered to resemble a pergola and filter gentle from the skylights above.
The concrete ground slab is constructed over an underground electrical station, utilizing its concrete partitions as foundations to keep away from additional use of concrete.
Some window openings puncture the outside, however for probably the most half, clean partitions have been crucial for hanging instruments and storing equipment and tools.
“We thought it was essential to position some home windows in strategic locations to supply views to the refectory and the workshop house, whereas the customers welcomed a supply of sunshine that might illuminate the depth of the plan,” mentioned Noël and Lopes.
“We took this as a possibility to design a pergola-like construction that may stand on prime of the brick partitions,” they continued. “By making the beams cross below the skylights, we produce a sequence of shadows that evoke outside backyard buildings.”
Structural supplies are left uncovered internally to mirror the industrious and sensible operate of the constructing, whereas the outside is adorned in lightly-coloured timber with the purpose of making a visually interesting public construction.
“The constructing is designed in an inverse order of building – the fragile timber cladding is positioned on the skin, and the tough construction is positioned on the within,” mentioned the architects.
“This responds to the intention of being empathetic with the general public house and stand up to the use that takes place within the inside.”
Noël and Lopes have been knowledgeable by the historical past of groundskeeper and backyard upkeep lodgings when designing the gardeners’ workshop.
“We have been within the typology of gardeners’ upkeep buildings and located that, previous to industrial buildings, gardeners had a house-like construction on website, with a kitchen, refectory and small workplace,” they mentioned.
“This ambiguity between an industrial construction and a house-like character appeared price exploring.”
Primarily based in Geneva, Noël and Lopez based the structure studio Cupboard in 2019.
Different workshops which have been in-built wooded areas embody a timber barn-like construction constructed on a historic farm in Sweden and a model-making shed in Tub produced from timber and corrugated fibreglass.
The images is by Sven Högger.
Challenge credit:
Architects: Cupboard Fanny Noël Diogo Lopes Architectes
Civil engineer: ZS Ingénieurs Civils
M&E engineer: Amstein + Walthert Genève
Thermal engineer: Perreten et Milleret
Surveyor: Haller Wasser + Associate
Fireplace engineer: Zanetti Ingénieurs Conseils
Panorama architect: Oxalis Architectes Paysagistes
