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

Diesbach was once a village that was home to generations of people from all walks of life. Following the relocation and closure of the textile factories in the Linth valley, demographic decline ensued, leaving vacant buildings behind after the workers had left. 
Other factors also contributed to the decline in Diesbach's social life. The village shop, which used to be a place for villagers to share, had to close because it was no longer profitable. The village Gasthaus, which had a small bar-restaurant, also closed, leaving the villagers without a meeting place close to home. 
This lack of meeting places quickly became apparent during our site visits, and was confirmed by the villagers we met. 

But how can Diesbach be revitalised? 
Thanks to our regenerative farm project in Diesbach, a new economic activity is emerging in the village. This farm of more than 100 hectares involves more than forty farmers and supplies a wide variety of local produce. 

The former village shop building has been converted into a kitchen, restaurant and grocery shop.  Products from our regenerative farm, as well as products from the Legler areal start-ups, are sold on site in a self-service shop, the pantry of the inhabitants of Diesbach.  
These products are also prepared in the kitchen to create dishes available in three different ways. They are sold directly in the grocery shop for takeaway, they are also available by delivery for the village's elderly, and it is also possible to eat them on site in the Diesbach canteen, a place that brings together villagers, seasonal workers and new workers from the village. All generations from different working backgrounds come together in this place of sharing, which had disappeared and was so much appreciated by the villagers. 
On the ground floor is the village's kitchen and pantry, which benefits both. The cooks use the pantry to prepare meals and also restock the shelves with takeaway food.  
The first floor is accessible via a staircase that opens onto the public space to access the restaurant area. The staircase leads past a greenhouse, a reminder that the produce comes directly from the village and a foretaste of what's on the plates. 

This greenhouse was once a garage that has now been transformed into a place for growing plants. The wooden structure of the existing garage is duplicated on either side of the building, like an extrusion of its original volume. The opaque cladding of the existing building is retained, while the two extensions to the building have a transparent polycarbonate cladding, to heat the space using the sun's rays. 
A workshop and plants requiring little light are placed in the centre of the building, while those requiring more sunlight are located in the two extensions. 

The Gasthaus, which faces the grocery shop and restaurant building, is home to seasonal workers in both summer and winter. During the warmer months, some of the civil servants are housed in this former gasthaus, which has been converted into a large WG. During the cold season, some of the seasonal workers from the Braunwald ski resort, 20 minutes away by public transport, can be accommodated in this WG when the fields no longer require as many workers. 
The building mainly requires interior work, as its facades are iconic in this village and must not be altered.  
A variety of rooms have been designed to meet different needs. 
Rooms have been created on the first two floors, where the Gasthaus' communal areas used to be. On the second floor, bathrooms have been added to the existing rooms to add quality to what already existed. And under the magnificent wooden roof structure is the new common area of this large WG.

In this way, a place that had been neglected over the years has been reborn in a new light, with the arrival of a younger generation in the village, while at the same time responding to the wishes of the inhabitants who no longer felt considered following the unification of all the villages in the valley into one large municipality, Glarus Sud.

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 Since the start of the industrial revolution, the western social system has been built on constant growth. Growth in population, economic performance, technological capabilities, cultural output - no area of human life has been untouched by this dynamic.

But it can no longer be ignored that we are at a breaking point. The planetary boundaries have been reached or already exceeded in many areas. The climate crisis as well as the biodiversity crisis are both negative consequences of this system.

A change of course is therefore not only needed, but inevitable due to demographics. Demographic developments will radically transform the society we know. Even if it still seems to be a distant future in Switzerland at the moment, the population here will also start to shrink in a few decades, even in urban areas. This is already the case in many European countries, and there are also areas in Switzerland that have been shrinking for decades. The area around the Klausen Pass is just such an area.

This project examines two case studies on both sides of the Klausen Pass to find out what kind of architecture makes sense in a shrinking society. How can places be created that enable a sustainable form of growth and coexistence in such a location? On the Glarus side, a new scheme is proposed for the former woollen weaving mill in Rüti, while on the Uri side, an new approach is implemented in the former Gasthof St. Anton in Spiringen.

Such shrinking places have one advantage: the forces of the market are significantly weaker and projects that are not aimed at optimising profits also have a chance to thrive. There is an opportunity to utilise these places creatively through small interventions and make them usable for society.

The projects are characterised by the fact that they consist of a large number of small interventions that can be carried out without great expense over a longer period of time. If an intervention is a success, it can be built upon; if it is a failure, it can be reacted to. In this context, architecture is not understood as a project, but as a process.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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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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Chair of Architecture and Construction
Adam Caruso
The project is presented as a folder, a collection of stories, architectural details, and material understanding, to provide information about the handling of the building and propose a resource for an ongoing transformation. The pages and stories can be rearranged, offering multiple readings and interpretations of the building, architectural fragments, and the interventions.

The research project engages with the hotel building known as Marriott that opened in the 1970s as an autonomous object in the city center of Zurich.The research unfolded stories about the building from contact with the original architect of the building, the interior designers, and the Head of Engineering who has worked in the building for over 25 years. Since the opening of the hotel, the idea of a «complete work of art» has been defiant. Over the years, the building underwent numerous modifications and transformations, revealing mutable versions of itself to keep up with the changing trends in hotel architecture.The generic new interiors have alienated the building’s interior from its shell. Each trend lasts for a generation and is custom- made for international hotel guests.The real users of the building, the workers, are thereby overlooked.The spatial separation between the front and back of the house is disproportionate.

The light touch aims to transform unused or historically interesting spaces in the hotel by critically reframing the existing layers and instrumentalising what is there.The actions are planned following the skill and expertise of the Engineering Team members of Marriott who have been in charge of every change ever made. Each space is appropriated to a new programme to tell the stories I encountered and reveal (im)material values that the building holds. Old, intermediate, and new layers create new atmospheres that are characterful to reconnect the hotel to its users and stay relevant in the future.

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It is time to ask the right questions. Because our world as we know it is in deep crisis. The one I ask myself calls in question the field of architecture irself.

This project has the aim to name and interrogate the motivations that push to destroy, to build new, always more, again and again, to throw away the faded, the preference to replace instead of repair. In other words, our very capitalist way of doing architecture.

And to propose an alternative.

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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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