ETH Zürich   Studio Adam CarusoETH Zürich  Studio Adam CarusoETH Zürich  Studio A. CarusoETHZ   Studio Caruso

At the threshold of the village of Rüti GL stands a quiet industrial building. On its façade, one can just barely make out the words Wollweberei Rüti — a former wool spinning factory that now appears abandoned. Its walls still carry traces of the production, adaptations, and many transformations it has witnessed over more than a century.

The project begins with a territorial ambition: to create a regenerative farm at the scale of the village of Rüti. This vision requires a herd of 300 sheep, not only for landscape management and soil regeneration but also for the production of wool, milk, and cheese. At the same time, the village of Rüti has no access to higher education within 1.5 hours by train, which severely limits opportunities for young people in the region. The idea of combining agricultural production with higher education makes sense — especially in this idyllic setting, where reusing the former wool factory as an agronomy school becomes both a symbolic and practical gesture.

The core architectural idea is to anchor the new program within the existing structure as respectfully as possible. Rather than erasing or drastically altering the old factory, the interventions aim to integrate into it, preserving and celebrating its spatial qualities. The generous industrial volumes are maintained, with minimal additions. Where new elements are introduced, they are clearly readable and reversible. The result is a hybrid space: part learning environment, part productive farm, and part historical artifact.

The energy concept is based on a phased and locally rooted approach. Over several years, the 1850s building is gradually insulated with sheep wool, creating a clear connection between the function of the farm and the materials used in construction.

Underfloor heating is installed in the living and teaching areas, powered by a heat pump connected to the existing Kraftwerk — a former hydropower plant that remains in operation within the building.

Rather than replacing the original windows, they are carefully repaired, and small foam seals are added to reduce air infiltration, preserving their historic character while improving performance.

Architecturally, a major addition is a central circulation core — a staircase that connects all levels and improves accessibility throughout the building.

Moreover, the attic level is reimagined to accommodate guests and visitors. This space becomes a bridge between the local community, the school, and the outside world, supporting temporary stays, workshops, and events.

Finally, the largest architectural intervention addresses the key issue of the complex: the latest storage hall, built in 1982, hides the historic glazed façade from 1916 and casts the main hall into shadow. The intervention is therefore to deconstruct this extension, keep its wooden load-bearing structure, and reuse it to erect a new building with a classic dual-pitched roof. This new volume frees the historic façade and allows natural light to re-enter the main hall. The newly constructed building is dedicated to sheep milking, forming a functional and symbolic link between the herd and the historic fabric of the site.

In short, the project proposes a new rural campus model where farmers, students, researchers, and locals come together. It is a place of production, education, and innovation. It revives the site and responds to the demographic decline that has affected the villages of the Glarus valley since the end of its industrial golden age.

 The Klausenpass, where the project is located, is very strongly impacted by the different seasons. Indeed, the road closure due to the winter snow covering of the 1948m asl pass makes the place very different depending on the seasons.

The project then seeks to create two different uses, interweaving the different conditions of the surroundings and answering challenges both in winter and summer. In summer, the main focus is to provide a platform dwelling people high up around the pass, providing cheap manpower for the local farmers working in the nearby alps.

In winter, the project otherwise very close to the road become completely isolated. The people that stayed and worked there during summer can stay in the same building, but in a very different environment. As a counterpart -and retribution- to the work accomplished during summer, guided skitouring outings are organized. This way of being compensated for the summer work allows a more economically accessible way to learn mountain sports.

In a more practical way, the building is dimensioned according the the workforce need of the farmers during the summer season. In winter, the building shifts in hibernation mode: since there is less need of rooms, the groups staying there are smaller. The bottom floor is then covered in snow, and is only used again the next spring.

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Ennenda is a place with a rich history that continues to shape its identity today. The intensive textile industry has left an indelible mark, contributing significantly to Ennenda's character. The architecture and facades of Ennenda stand as testament to that era, embodying both industrial prowess and wealth.

A notable historical landmark is the hanging tower on the Trümpi site. Despite being a reconstructed version of the original, this building still defines Ennenda's landscape, evoking memories of fluttering cloths from a bygone era.

The museum encapsulates this very essence of Ennenda, represented through its facades, placing them in the context of both historical and contemporary narratives. Just as vibrant prints from around the world were once replicated for textile printing, the exhibition mirrors these facades, faithfully reproducing selected elements.

These replicated facades serve as backdrops, layered with stories from the past and present. The building already hosts various functions, and the exhibition further enlivens the area by doubling as a part-time theater where these stories come to life. It creates moments where diverse people and perspectives converge, casting familiar scenes in a new light.

The set pieces are a blend of timber frames and three-dimensional textile facades.
As a ghostly presence, these facades shift between being a backdrop for dynamic projections and standing as delicate shadows that evoke the essence of Ennenda’s past. They create an ethereal atmosphere, showing the layers of history and capture the ephemeral nature of memory, reflecting how the town's history continues to influence its present.

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The office building at Gartenhofstrasse 17 was built in 1966 by Sigmund Feigel (1921 - 2004). While the adjacent Zweierstrasse is lined by a row of office buildings constructed around the same time, Gartenhofstrasse 17 is slightly set back into the street, reaching into the realm of residential buildings and neo-classicist factory buildings.

Throughout its lifespan the building had been renovated several times. The roof and the party walls on both sides have been isolated, the canopy renewed, and in 2011 the old facade panels were exchanged. The new facade, designed by Rolf Schaffner, led to a drastic decrease in energy consumption. The different construction periods result in a „bricolage des temps“.

Currently three of the building’s six stories are empty due to the relocation of municipal police offices, making the future of Gartenhofstrasse 17 uncertain.

Only few interventions are necessary to fundamentally change the organization of the building. 

On the inside a new form of living takes place where domestic spaces and the workplace fade into each other. From the outside the additions reinterpret the appearance of the building within its urban setting. While keeping the integrity of Schaffner´s facade intact, the side facades are opened with large pivoting windows that create a vis-à-vis to the adjacent neo-classicist buildings. In the courtyard one of the three parking garages has been opened, creating an alley way between the former office building and a new atelier building. On the front side an extension of the canopy allows a glimpse into the hidden world of the backyard. 

The ways in which particular elements, spaces and structures are transformed remind us of the „rococoization“ of gothic churches.  By introducing a new grammar, given things change the way we perceive them. Despite the obvious friction between building periodes and languages there derives a new unity.

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Referring to Lucius Burckhardts ‘Der kleinstmögliche Eingriff’ written in the 1980s, the project aims to de-objectify the Marriott Hotel that is located at the most central locations, yet remains mostly unnoticed by the cities’ inhabitants. In the sense of Burckhardts aesthetic survey, the project follows six paths that lead up to the many entrances of the building and proposed the smallest possible interventions to initiate transformation. By promoting a change in perception of the building and its relationship to the urban landscape the buildings strength of accessibility can once again be valued. It could then become a space for the public that ultimately prevents it from demolition.

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Re-working the mosaic questions the arbitrariness imposed by the cadastre and sug-gests to the inhabitants of the neighborhood a new appreciation of their surrounding landscape. A series of architectural and landscape interventions revisit the fragmen-tation caused by the urban mosaic as it is today and thus draw a constellation along the Triemlifussweg highly beneficial for biodiversity. Their complementarity offers residents a sustainable infrastructure that allows them to feel native to their place and thus reinforces the feeling of belonging to a community.

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The task of re-using Ciba triggered two main questions in me: Firstly, what meaning the term re-use could signify and comport and secondly, what constitutes the identity of a place.
The concept of circular economy possesses a high potential regarding the problems and questions of the CIBA areal. It is about thinking the economy in circular processes, i.e. sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, reconditioning, and finally recycling products and materials. The average demolition of ten houses in Switzerland per day and construction waste’s share of four-fifths of the total Swiss waste proves how vital circular thinking is to future architecture.
By designing the component catalogue, we can give the materials used in the Ciba Buildings an identity and therefore seeing them as a resource. However, in addition to recognising the material value, the value of the work needed to produce the component must also be considered. A building component can be looked at as an accumulation of materials, working processes, assembling operations and production design steps.
The goal of the intervention is to turn the Bau610, the former canteen of CIBA, with minimal interventions in an accessible productive space. The main task of the building is the circulation, i.e. the access for city residents and the movement of the building components.
The building components of dismantled structures are delivered, stored, processed, and distributed again. For this purpose the roof and the basement are connected by a crane in the north and a stair tower with a goods lift facing south.
The new structures are „dressed“ by the ever-changing components stored in the building and display the material accumulation and continuous process.
In this project there isn’t a finished designed building but a proposal for a way of thinking about architecture and the built environment. Instead of production- and consumption-oriented architecture we should advocate circular processes in the architecture and the building industry.
To conclude with a quote of Thomas Hirschhorn, a contemporary artist that greatly inspired this design process : “It is not about re-using, it is about working with what is there”.

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