Duplex Architekten
Architecture Firm Zurich / Switzerland
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The architectural practice Duplex Architekten was founded by Anne Kaestle and Dan Schürch in Zurich in 2007. Besides the headquarters in Switzerland, Duplex has run branch offices in Düsseldorf and Hamburg since 2011. The management level is supported by three associates, Konrad Mangold (Zurich), Sarah Escher (Düsseldorf) and Christof Weber (Hamburg).
Duplex Architekten plan and design projects of various scales and building tasks, with their expertise ranging from private homes to commercial buildings, office and residential complexes, school buildings through to whole urban districts. They are as interested in the large scale with long-term development processes as in detailed research into material, light and space. Wherever one cannot or doesn’t want to draw on a standard repertoire, Duplex Architekten see their strengths. Another focus of their work is the transformation of existing buildings.
The existing building structure is preserved and something new is generated through modifications. Architecture may once again tell a story. A recurring motif in the work of Duplex Architekten is their search for the identity of a building, a façade or a whole urban quarter. It can be developed from a special feature of the room schedule, a difficult characteristic of the site, legal restrictions or from one’s own typological fascination. It is this careful «listening» that distinguishes the work of Duplex Architekten and has become an essential design-generating engine in all their projects. Different aspects and perspectives are playfully overlaid until a harmonious whole emerges.
The result in an architecture that provides surprising or surprisingly self-evident but always multi- faceted answers to the formulated questions. So it is not so much the concrete appearance of their buildings but their methodology that can be identified as the signature of Duplex Architekten.
Duplex Architekten plan and design projects of various scales and building tasks, with their expertise ranging from private homes to commercial buildings, office and residential complexes, school buildings through to whole urban districts. They are as interested in the large scale with long-term development processes as in detailed research into material, light and space. Wherever one cannot or doesn’t want to draw on a standard repertoire, Duplex Architekten see their strengths. Another focus of their work is the transformation of existing buildings.
The existing building structure is preserved and something new is generated through modifications. Architecture may once again tell a story. A recurring motif in the work of Duplex Architekten is their search for the identity of a building, a façade or a whole urban quarter. It can be developed from a special feature of the room schedule, a difficult characteristic of the site, legal restrictions or from one’s own typological fascination. It is this careful «listening» that distinguishes the work of Duplex Architekten and has become an essential design-generating engine in all their projects. Different aspects and perspectives are playfully overlaid until a harmonious whole emerges.
The result in an architecture that provides surprising or surprisingly self-evident but always multi- faceted answers to the formulated questions. So it is not so much the concrete appearance of their buildings but their methodology that can be identified as the signature of Duplex Architekten.
The architectural practice Duplex Architekten was founded by Anne Kaestle and Dan Schürch in Zurich in 2007. Besides the headquarters in Switzerland, Duplex has run branch offices in Düsseldorf and Hamburg since 2011. The management level is supported by three associates, Konrad Mangold (Zurich), Sarah Escher (Düsseldorf) and Christof Weber (Hamburg). Duplex Architekten plan and design projects of various scales and building tasks, with their expertise ranging from private homes to...