SeARCH and CMA
Post By:Kitticoon Poopong
Ace in the Hole: A design team takes an intrepid approach to build a house on a sensitive site in the Swiss Alps.
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to move in next door to a building recognized as one of the era’s Modern masterpieces. But a team of architects has boldly taken on the challenge, erecting a house in Vals, Switzerland, an Alpine village of about 1,000 inhabitants that sits at 4,100 feet, deep in a narrow valley in the Graubünden canton. At the proverbial end of the road, Vals put its name on the map 14 years ago when the community took over a hotel complex abandoned by a bankrupt developer and brought in Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, who created a new facility for the town’s thermal baths. Completed in 1996 and widely hailed as a tour de force, Therme Vals has become a place of pilgrimage, in particular for architecture tourists.
