ETH Zürich   Studio Adam CarusoETH Zürich  Studio Adam CarusoETH Zürich  Studio A. CarusoETHZ   Studio Caruso

Dwelling is an activity—a dynamic process shaped by the flow of people. Linthal, in the canton of Glarus, once flourished through the textile industry but declined with its disappearance. Amid underused buildings in this quiet town, Kosthaus stands on a broad meadow in the valley.

Originating in the 19th century, the Kosthaus was a pragmatic housing model for industrial workers—marked by rationality, repetition, and minimal material use. Typically built as row houses, they prioritized efficiency over comfort.

This thesis explores the adaptive reuse of a former Kosthaus into a flexible housing model that accommodates short-, mid-, and long-term stays within one architectural framework. It aims to show how rural contexts can offer socially integrated, adaptable alternatives to urban housing—responding to contemporary shifts in labor, mobility, and community.

The Linthal Kosthaus includes four distinct units under one roof. Its original spatial logic—a sequence of compact, interconnected rooms—offers surprising potential. Rather than erasing these historical features, the project reclaims them as assets for reimagined collective living.

A new timber extension adds modular rooms divided by curtains, allowing residents to reconfigure spaces and mediate privacy and shared use. Openings in the original façade connect old and new; dismantled bricks were reused in the garden as thermal masses—absorbing heat by day, releasing it by night.

As visitor and resident flows change throughout the year, the project supports varied occupancy modes, household configurations, and rhythms of use. In doing so, it reactivates a forgotten typology—transforming it from a relic of industrial austerity into a model for inclusive, future-oriented rural life.

silentwitness.hotglue.me

 The Klausenpass, where the project is located, is very strongly impacted by the different seasons. Indeed, the road closure due to the winter snow covering of the 1948m asl pass makes the place very different depending on the seasons.

The project then seeks to create two different uses, interweaving the different conditions of the surroundings and answering challenges both in winter and summer. In summer, the main focus is to provide a platform dwelling people high up around the pass, providing cheap manpower for the local farmers working in the nearby alps.

In winter, the project otherwise very close to the road become completely isolated. The people that stayed and worked there during summer can stay in the same building, but in a very different environment. As a counterpart -and retribution- to the work accomplished during summer, guided skitouring outings are organized. This way of being compensated for the summer work allows a more economically accessible way to learn mountain sports.

In a more practical way, the building is dimensioned according the the workforce need of the farmers during the summer season. In winter, the building shifts in hibernation mode: since there is less need of rooms, the groups staying there are smaller. The bottom floor is then covered in snow, and is only used again the next spring.

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By investigating the history of Glarus it became apparent that the textile industry played a significant role. Described as a pioneer work, the heroic and linear narrative still plays an important role in the canton’s identity today. Inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s concept of the carrier bag, a collection of stories was gathered describing that the Glarnerland isn’t only about the heydays of the industry but also about the possibilities it left behind.

One of the stories to be told is explained by Peter Jenny. In an interview, he mentioned that besides the industrial past, the Glarnerland has the quality of serving as a niche and by that attracting artists and other people involved in the cultural scene. After the textile industry came to a halt at the end of the 20th century, space became available that could be exploited. Examples such as the Palais Jaune in Diesbach in the 1980s or the still active Hollenstein in Ennenda illustrate what Jenny was referring to. Both places offered space to communities of people involved in the cultural sector where they could create their own environment, hidden from the rush in the cities.

Also, the Hänggiturm shows a straightforward way of representing the history of the textile past. Reapplying Ursula Le Guin’s method to analyze the building it became clear that the seemingly perfect appearance of the ensemble has more stories
to tell. The old, original factory building was supposed to serve as a base for the relocated Hänggiturm. As the building was a bit too narrow, it was demolished in the 90s and replaced by a new building with the same appearance. One irregularity that illustrates the orchestration is the large basement with an underground garage.

How does this “Niche” manifest itself?
The relocation of the post office that is currently inhabiting the base of the building offers the possibility to introduce a new use. As an extension of the existing cultural network, a residency for artists is implemented into the partly vacated building. Equipped with small appartements it allows the guests to inhabit the building for any length of time. The floor slab to the basement is cut open to unveil the orchestration and to provide the basement with natural light. The space once used as a garage is reframed into a Werkhalle, ready to be appropriated by the inhabitants, starting with a ceramic workshop in which tiles are produced which are installed on the upper floors. Inspired by the structure of the Chelsea Hotel
the ground floor is transformed into the new Lobby of the building. Together with the existing Anna Göldi Museum in the Hänggiturm, the lobby mediates between the public and the newly implemented internal world. The bar, reception, and collective kitchen on one hand welcome the public of Ennenda into the building and on the other hand, serve as an extension of the inhabitants’ living rooms, enabling a community to form around the residence. The seven existing bathrooms on the upper floors allow the plans to be altered into seven smaller apartments. Equipped with a bed and a small kitchen they provide a basis for the individual occupation of the inhabitants.

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The office building at Gartenhofstrasse 17 was built in 1966 by Sigmund Feigel (1921 - 2004). While the adjacent Zweierstrasse is lined by a row of office buildings constructed around the same time, Gartenhofstrasse 17 is slightly set back into the street, reaching into the realm of residential buildings and neo-classicist factory buildings.

Throughout its lifespan the building had been renovated several times. The roof and the party walls on both sides have been isolated, the canopy renewed, and in 2011 the old facade panels were exchanged. The new facade, designed by Rolf Schaffner, led to a drastic decrease in energy consumption. The different construction periods result in a „bricolage des temps“.

Currently three of the building’s six stories are empty due to the relocation of municipal police offices, making the future of Gartenhofstrasse 17 uncertain.

Only few interventions are necessary to fundamentally change the organization of the building. 

On the inside a new form of living takes place where domestic spaces and the workplace fade into each other. From the outside the additions reinterpret the appearance of the building within its urban setting. While keeping the integrity of Schaffner´s facade intact, the side facades are opened with large pivoting windows that create a vis-à-vis to the adjacent neo-classicist buildings. In the courtyard one of the three parking garages has been opened, creating an alley way between the former office building and a new atelier building. On the front side an extension of the canopy allows a glimpse into the hidden world of the backyard. 

The ways in which particular elements, spaces and structures are transformed remind us of the „rococoization“ of gothic churches.  By introducing a new grammar, given things change the way we perceive them. Despite the obvious friction between building periodes and languages there derives a new unity.

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This project is a continuing dialog that aims at rendering visible the already existing, yet overlooked practices on site while re-attributing value to their process. It func- tions as an ongoing program of modification within the hotel framework that will better profit from the existing socio-cultural resources. A series of action and interven- tion varying in time and scale will generate a never-en- ding dialogue between the hotel and its actors in order to sustain change by fostering a light but durable change in the long term.

While remaining non-disruptive, a series of small-scale actions will reveal the value of the existing practices. With simple mean such as improving access to, or re- locating existing programs, light programmatic change will spread throughout the hotel while empowering their actors. New processes will be creating along the way al- lowing for the emergences of new relationship between the landmark and the social life of Zürich.

underthecarpett.cargo.site

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It is time to ask the right questions. Because our world as we know it is in deep crisis. The one I ask myself calls in question the field of architecture irself.

This project has the aim to name and interrogate the motivations that push to destroy, to build new, always more, again and again, to throw away the faded, the preference to replace instead of repair. In other words, our very capitalist way of doing architecture.

And to propose an alternative.

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