In the Krokodil residential development on the Sulzer site in Winterthur, the ecological building material is used in a very unromantic way.
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The knotholes can hardly be seen under the glaze. But the wood is all the more noticeable spatially.
Photo: Jürg Zimmermann
Wood has an inferiority complex, evil tongues could say. It always wants to be in the foreground when it finally comes to the fore instead of concrete or brick. Even with a block of flats in the city, it has to boast on the facade, it looks so nice and haptic and homely. Not so on the Sulzer site in Winterthur. Hardly any other building in Switzerland has used as much wood as here. But nothing of it can be seen. At least initially.
This is not surprising on the edge of the former industrial site of Sulzer, which the construction company Implenia is turning into a dense locomotive town. Old brick buildings set the tone here, new solid buildings are looking for a connection to the past. In the middle, the crocodile occupies a massive block edge, 106 by 65 meters. The large form follows the tradition of the large hall volumes on the area.
