Interactive floor plan: Campodels House, Chur

This concrete structure, created by the artists and architects Pascale Wiedemann and Daniel Mettler, is intended as a sober second home with a pared-down interior to focus the attention on the site, light and space.

Located in the Bündner mountains close to Chur, the skewed concrete cube provides generous accommodation for two families, with an interlocking staircase that ensures each set of residents is largely unaware of the other's presence.

The new structure is set in the heart of one of Switzlerland's most popular mountain playgrounds, close to Davos, Lenzerheide, St Moritz and Zurich.

With a wealth of leisure opportunities on the doorstep, the designers decided to make the physical structure as simple as possible, the ultimate expression of the so-called 'Swiss Box' school of residential design.

The concrete shell is pure and unadorned, with doors and window openings framed with wood and pared down to minimal details. The recessed external balconies are accessed via floor-to-ceiling sliding glass walls.

Colour is kept to a minimum, with a splash of polychromatic playfulness in the basement entry area accompanied by lacquered wardrobe doors in each apartment.

Each four-room apartment, one on the ground and one on the first floor, is sparsely furnished, with minimally detailed Strato kitchens and broad expanses of open space creating a multi-aspect main living space.

The long diagonal dimension has been preserved by keeping the living space and kitchen open to the stairwell, with two bedrooms per apartment opening off the living space.

19 March 2010 | Architecture