MINERGIE House with HI-MACS Kitchen In Termen by Zeiter + Berchtold

Architects: Zeiter + Berchtold
Location: Termen, Switzerland
Year: 2015
Builder company: Matthias Werlen Architektur
Photo courtesy: Thomas Andenmatten
Description:

To start with there was the HI-MACS kitchen, and from it a really remarkable family home was made. On the sunny level of Brigerberg in Termen, with terrific vistas over the valley and the Pennine Alps, stands the home of the Berchtold family, whose building arrangements started with the kitchen. The basic box-formed wooden structure sits on a noticeable solid base and bulges out from the slant.

The specially designed wooden home is opened up on three sides on account of broad glass dividers on the first floor. The level wooden roof is roosted just on advanced backings, wrapped by frameless cover coating. The requirement for precise dimensioning, particularly where the wooden structure and the solid base join, displayed an awesome configuration challenge.

On account of the open outline of the home, Berchtold family life happens both in and with its normal outside environment. “The outline is an advanced understanding of the locale’s customary building styles. In past days, stone bases shielded wooden outbuildings from snow and water,” clarifies designer Matthias Werlen from Brig.

“With the Berchtold home, the solid cellar likewise isolates the primary house from its surroundings. Conversely, the open glass dividers reconnect the home with its normal environment.” Like its structural engineering, the home joins convention and innovation in its building materials, for example, privately developed wood with cutting edge materials like HI-MACS characteristic acrylic stone. With MINERGIE house confirmation in three classifications, the building meets the most elevated vitality standard in Switzerland.

Matthias Werlen and building proprietor Werner Berchtold worked firmly together from the earliest starting point. The idea, outside configuration, floor arranges and the inner format were set in the planner’s hands, while Berchtold himself tackled the whole inside outline of the building.

At the point when Matthias Werlen began arranging the family home, the kitchen show as of now existed. Unmistakably arranged for all to see, it remained on the premises of Zeiter + Berchtold AG, Werner Berchtold’s own organization. Its primary element is a kitchen island with white HI-MACS boards and illuminated glass cut-outs, supplemented by straightforward, cream-shaded furniture picked by Madeleine Berchtold. As an expert joiner, Werner Berchtold had clear thoughts of what he needed in a home: wood, glass, basic room formats and an open perspective over the Rhonetal valley. In the inside configuration, HI-MACS strong surface material was an unquestionable requirement for the kitchen island and both of the home’s bathrooms.

“We knew from the earliest starting point that we needed to utilize HI-MACS. The material is perfect for the kitchen and restroom in light of its safe, non-permeable surface and on account of its thermoplastic properties, it offers adaptable configuration alternatives, from basic, rectangular shapes to liberal, naturally adjusted lines,” says Werner Berchtold, who has met expectations with the strong surface material for quite a long time in his own organization and is very much familiar with its properties and even its preparing.

Because of the building’s position on a slant, the home’s passageway is at storm cellar level, where the carport, utility room, basement, the hall with coat rack and the workplace are found. The living region of the home begins on the first floor. Here, the kitchen not just constitutes the point of convergence of the room, additionally remains at the precise focus of the whole building. Its open-arrangement plan and free pathways around and through it permit the cook a stunning all encompassing perspective of the mountains. The light oak floor supplements the cream-shaded kitchen furniture, its grainy surface a distinctive complexity to the unmistakable, smooth white of the HI-MACS island.

The contiguous washroom likewise utilizes HI-MACS. The HI-MACS Babylon Beige dividers mix flawlessly into the shower floor. The glass divider to the room is embedded into the divider so as to evade joints that would should be fixed and nurtured. The shower is comparative outlined in the lavatory on the second floor where the rooms are found. Both the shower and the swayed, oval-molded bathtub are produced using acrylic stone.

“Greetings MACS is warm, smooth and lovely to the touch,” clarifies Werner Berchtold. “This is, obviously, an essential thought for the bathtub, additionally ought not be disregarded in the kitchen.” Berchtold likewise exceptionally rates the hygienic properties of HI-MACS on account of its non-permeable surface. “The material is fabulously simple to clean and look after, and it goes on for quite a long time,” Berchtold says. “Not so with tiled bathrooms that have joints or painted zones.” The Berchtold home along these lines has as few silicone joints as it has tiles.

The separated family home was planned and developed in accordance with the criteria set out in the MINERGIE standard. Today it is guaranteed in three classifications, making it the most elevated determination in Switzerland: “MINERGIE P” for the building’s enhanced warmth protection, a thicker external shell and agreeable ventilation, “MINERGIE A” for its energy supply by means of sun based boards on the gabled rooftop and for family unit apparatuses with the best vitality class appraisals, and “eco” for the utilization of common hues, privately developed wood and low formaldehyde values.

In meeting this standard, HI-MACS acrylic stone likewise needed to satisfy a few necessities. Berchtold acquired an authentication from HI-MACS maker LG Hausys on the maintainability and low formaldehyde substance of the material, likewise expressing that no formaldehyde is discharged into the earth after the material’s establishment. The test for the MINERGIE eco accreditation affirms it: HI-MACS acrylic stone has filled its need well.