Together with the Rosenweg high-rise, the project creates an urban double figure, promoting a sense of identity for the town center of Effretikon. The urban space between the two vertical landmarks is formulated by means of two horizontally articulated architectural volumes. They each have verdant rooftop gardens, thus becoming part of the existing mosaic-like layout of the numerous surrounding garden and green areas.

The high-rise building is conceived as a tower vis-à-vis the town and the landscape. It opens up on all sides to the urban and landscape spaces. Protruding, colored photovoltaic elements give the tower a lightness and a lively relief.

The basic idea in the high-rise apartments is a V-shaped residential figure, consisting of a living and dining area and an outdoor space. This figure opens up panoramically on two sides into the landscape. The design manages to largely dispense with corridors and access to the rooms via the living and dining area. The spacious entrance lends the apartments a touch of bourgeois formality.

The architectural volume of the wholesale distributor with its verdant rooftop garden appears like a giant plant vase. The residents enjoy a terrace with a shade roof, as if surrounded by nature, with trees and shrubs framing the view of the sky. The façade of the major distributor is equipped with a graduated cladding of enameled glass plates in which a planter to green the façade is integrated. In this way, the garden idea extends to the façade.

The apartment and commercial building E1 is articulated as a calm, embedded urban cornerstone. Its subdued volumes absorb the lines of the streets on three sides, helping in the process to formulate Rosenwegplatz and the new Rikonerplatz. The offices spaces are arranged along the noise-affected Rikonerstrasse, while the double-facing family apartments are grouped around the lushly greened courtyard, provided with both loggias and winter gardens. The apartments are conceived as open-hall types with a separable kitchen. In response to the challenges of today’s family living, the proximity of the kitchens to the winter gardens provides multiple forms of use. The façade of building E1, with its ribbon balconies of photovoltaic cells, radiates a friendly, anti-monumental calmness.