St. Anna - Entrance hall | Piotr Brzoza

Office building at St. Anna 18 in the city center of Zurich was build in late 50‘s of the last century, as a part of a city block Sill-Strasse 20 / Steinmühle-Platz 1 / St. Anna-Gasse 18. Retail spaces were located at the ground floor, while office complex occupy upper stores with the entrance from Sihl-Strasse. The main aim of the project was to create an independent entrance hall to the office spaces from St. Anna-Gasse. The project encompasses full rebuilding of the ground floor level as well as adjacent elevations and store windows. Spatial figure of the entrance hall interplay with complex geometry of the existing structure, however without loosing it‘s autonomy of form. Infrastructural and constructive obstacles were turned into creative factors of the spatial morphing. Polygonal shell sneaks between load bearing elements, installations and span the difference between floor levels. The wall surface of the hall is preciously finished with white plaster and marble from Carrara. Continuous polygonal surface is juxtaposed by two elements, upholstered in brown leather - circular opening, that shows retail spaces, and lounge-like niche where one can sit and relax. Doubling the partitions on the facade by new sandstone columns, creates a new order and allow a clear functional division between entrances and store windows. Design of skylights, protruded store windows, and sunshades is a modern variation of the original concept from the 50‘s. Covering sandstone for the new colums and entrance hollow was excavated from the same quarry as the original facade, to assure material unity. Client: SPS Immobilien AG Clients representation: Wincasa AG Architect: Piotr Brzoza Architekten GmbH Project Team: Piotr Brzoza, Malgorzata Kocima, Lukasz Wolenski Construction management: Zoix GmbH Structural engineering: APT Ingenieure GmbH Climat control design: CM Engineering GmbH Electrical planing: Riesen Elektroplanungs GmbH