Lodge79 Kemptthal

On the site of the former Maggi industrial complex in Kempttal, near Winterthur, an old railway depot – a historic building dating back to the early 1920s – has been renovated to expand the space available on the Givaudan Innovation Centre campus. Coherent implementation of the « House in the House » concept has naturally limited intervention on the building’s original structure which deserved to be protected. The depot’s new functions have thus been “concealed” in coloured wooden boxes resembling the railway carriages which were loaded and unloaded under the same roof for decades. The yellow one houses the factory shop, the green one a fitness centre, the blue one contains changing rooms and showers and the red one accommodates the building’s utilities.  These four facilities are fixed on a single basic grid and their layout respects the existing structure. The leisure areas in the intervening open, covered space are optimized to provide an entrance hall, storage area and a bicycle shed.