Named House with One Wall, the concrete and glass building was designed by Swiss architect Christian Kerez for a plot in Witikon, east of the city. Perched on a slope, it offers residents views of nearby Lake Zurich.
A two-family house is a building with a wall that divides it into two halves. The dividing wall is the only wall in the entire house. It cannot be crossed anywhere. It has to fulfill functions conventionally assigned to several architectural elements. It is the load bearing structure and the installation core, its folds define all of the rooms and it determines how the view from the entirely glazed building is divided between the two living units.
The simplicity of the concept, the reduction of the architecture to a single element, creates substantial dependence and, in turn, makes the building very complex. It is only through that dependence that the wall acquires a compelling and cogent character although, in itself, it can follow any chosen course.
