AVA Altenrhein ​Wastewater Purification Plant / Lukas Imhof Architektur

This strategy aims to ensure that a beautiful new building is not simply placed next to an unattractive old building, but that the old and the new communicate with each other, and in the best case even enrich each other. The result is easily recognizable, for example, in the case of the new EMV building and the old building directly opposite: both buildings have “moved towards each other”. The existing building has been painted gray-brown under its exposed concrete roof, which corresponds to the pre-greyed wooden façade of the new building. The new building, in turn, has a concrete termination above its wooden façade that is the same height as its neighbor’s, but more finely finished and profiled with a canopy. Thus, these two buildings, which are directly opposite each other, become unequal siblings – but together they span a square that has some spatial quality.

This strategy will continue to be used on the site in the future. Similar elements will be used whenever possible: dark-painted plaster, exposed concrete, and vertically articulated wood facades in pre-greyed fir. Concrete canopies are used to protect these wood facades. This element is also used a،n and a،n – for example at the EMC plant or the stacking-mixing containers, thus contributing to the uniform appearance of the entire plant. This strategy of reduction to a few elements that make sense from a technical and ecological point of view ensures that the AVA facility will ،n in design quality as it is expanded in the future – and as a w،le, not as a collection of individual objects.