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 logbook ‘Klausenpass: Between two distinct valleys’ was created during the research phase on the topic ‘Switzerland at a Crossroads’ in the Klausenpass region. It focused on the similarities and differ- ences between the Schächental and Glarnertal. With several interviews, we explored the infrastructure in the landscape, living systems and the migration to the centres.

The resulting project ‘The Glarus Alps Battery with Algae Cultivation’ deals with the question of how existing infrastructure systems, vacant buildings and agriculture can be used to create a post-fossil production and at the same time a qualitative place with added value for the local population with just a few tweaks.

The Linth-Limmern pumped storage power plant produces energy using hydropower. The power plant network makes it possible to collect turbid water and pump it back up when the energy price is low in order to generate energy again. In addition to the high-Alpine Muttsee and Limmernsee reservoirs, there are the Tierfehd and Linthal compensating reservoirs in the valley. These are monofunctional con- crete reservoirs, which are fenced in and offer no added value.

After the collapse of the textile industry, the valley is characterised by vacant industrial buildings, which are underused. Due to the vacancy and the location, there is little economic pressure on real estate compared to urban areas. This provides cost-effective space for projects and innovative ideas. Besides the former industrial buildings, the valley is very agricultural. In Switzerland, 270,000 tonnes of animal feed are imported from soya every year. Agroscope is currently researching alternative sources of protein, such as algae. These can be produced on uncultivated land and have a higher protein con- tent per kg. Growth occurs through photosynthesis and CO2 in a closed system.

The project combines a floating algae production facility on the compensation basin built for energy generation with a public swimming pool as an additional function and added value for the local popula- tion. The algae will be processed in the nearby former Bebié wool spinning mill, which will be converted with minor interventions. Both the construction of the bath and the installations in the industrial building are made of unused hardwood.

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The Anna Göldi Museum is located in Ennenda and is housed in the historic attic of the former Hänggiturm. It is barely recognizable from the outside and only the large letters ANNA on the chimney indicate that the museum is situated on the Trümpi site. The museum does not only tells a forgotten story of witches and women from another time, but also recalls the global influence and power of the textile industry in Switzerland.

In the first phase of the research, I looked at the content of the exhibition in the Anna Göldi Museum and took a closer look at the textile industry around Ennenda. As my grandmother was one of the workers in the Uznach spinning mill, I chose a very personal and intuitive research method. In the book Untold Stories I collected tellings of different women and recorded them as a collage in my book. The collected material is very diverse and highlights specific aspects that the women experienced and that concerned me. The aim was not to find a single truth, but to use the medium of the artist book to make them visible side by side without judging them.

On the ground floor of the museum, an additional program is to be provided that the residents of Ennenda can use and appropriate the space. As an exhibition, the women in my book have been given a space as a reminder of them and what they have experienced. Each of these spaces has a domestic character and does not correspond to the authoritarian character of a typical museum. Everyone should find their own access to the museum and new stories should be able to develop side by side in this new place.

In addition, a new park is to be created, which will become a visible center in Ennenda where people can meet or simply go for a walk. A water basin and a pavilion are located in the spacious area and give the outdoor area its character. The structures are simply designed, showcase the traditional craftsmanship of the area and provide another space for the clubs in Ennenda to appropriate and benefit from.

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Inspired by the trans material metamorphoses and the question: Double the building or building the double? The focus of my project shifted from the building I was first looking at to its less noticeable neighbour. 

How can one become the double of the other? To achieve the transformation, the building is wrapped in a new façade that creates a new layer in front. The old walls are still perceptible in the interior as a fragment of the building’s former self, dividing the private parts from the communal spaces of the flats. The private rooms stay inside, in the old chore of the building, while the communal spaces are located in the new layer. Through this so generated extension and enlargement, a higher density can be achieved as the number of flats per floor are doubled and the quality of the space is enhanced.  Through the extension the two buildings, before visually divided by the staircase, come to touch each other and the former staircase windows are incorporated in the communal spaces of the flat. 

The building, now transformed, is read as the double of its neighbour without becoming it’s exact copy. The height, the grid’s proportions and the angle of the façade are slightly different as well as the façade construction. The concrete of one is translated in the wood construction of the other. Trough the silver painting of the wood the two different materials are perceived as the same from afar and only at a closer look the different textures are reviled. While the outside of the building tries to mimic the concrete façade construction of its neighbour, the wooden construction is explicitly shown in the interior, creating a contrast between the old and the new. 

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Familiar strangers proposes a scenario that slowly transforms the hotel and its management style, learning from the daily disruptions and misuses. Alterations spread over time are accumulated on top of each other, creating and discovering other uses of the building. After all, embracing change is one of the core values of Marriott.

Like stage sets, hotels and their lobbies catch attention and provide a backdrop for human interactions. Rather than forcing contact between guests, a new model is put into place by letting visible traces of usage: objects are slowly put on display, voluntarily or not, and become screens onto which imaginative stories of lives past and present can be projected. Temporary kinships are created, and the building and its users become familiar strangers. Gradually, the rooms are transformed into something that can be different and the building is reconnected to the city, fulfilling Marriott’s global vision for the hotel to be “Zurich’s inspiring place, where brilliance connects people.”

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Dancing together apart re-evaluates the accessibility to food in cities, including the socio-cultural aspect around food rituals and spaces in communities. A proposition in three acts articulates different scales on the site of Engrosmarkt, from events to architectural interventions, as an ongoing research challenging the publicness of the industrial site.

The interventions gradually disrupt, alter, and modify some existing part of the site while using and misusing what is already built. The six physical infiltrations simultaneously happen with the emergence of a community life next to the sellers and truck drivers. Programs implicating each point of the city food chain arise alongside the market. Engrosmarkt becomes a laboratory working together but still apart with the existing flows.

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