Atelier 5, Siedlung Halen, Herrenschwanden, Switzerland, 1963 (view in google maps)

In a silvan glade close to Bern, Switzerland,  the first housing estate of the architecture studio Atelier 5 has been created in 1963. Against a background of an economic dealing with the building land 79 living units have been put together with high discipline and systematic on this plot of land in a high density.

The single houses (2 basic types, width of 4 and 5 m, three floors each) have been designed as simple and economic as possible. At the same time everything that has been possible has been done to protect the private interior and exterior from views. Moreover, the houses are perfectly separated from each other accustically. All pathes in the estate are free of traffic. Only on the principal street there is a limited shuttle service. The cars are left at a parking space outside.

The common places are considered very important. Every owner of a house buys a 79th of the total common spaces. The whole estate gets almost an urban character  with its central place and clearly hierarchical system of pathes.

Bibliography:

http://www.atelier5.ch/pdf/1961_H.pdf  [in German]

Reviewed by :

Rémi Farwati, Elena Giannitsopoulos, Nadir Bouchene, Adela Plasilova