AENKI ARCHITECTURE PLC

AFAR In Ethiopia, many building materials are imported at great expense. The Swiss Embassy is a pioneer building on the way to a modern, sustainable construction method in the urban context of Addis Ababa. 800 years ago in Ethiopia buildings were erected from the ground. The gel churches in Lalibea have been altered over centuries by weather and erosion but are still very modern in their form and materialization. The Swiss Embassy in Addis is also to be built from the ground. For this, a historical and traditional technique will be used in a modern way. The technique of "Pisé" or rammed earth has gained attention in Western Europe in the last decades. It has been applied on a new scale through innovations developed in Switzerland. Through the transfer of knowledge, which is part of the design and the building concept, the project will show that buildings with high comfort requirements can also be built with local and traditional materials. Urban setting The siting of the two volumes with their different uses and corresponding expression, within the formative enclosure, offers a lot of potential for the exterior space and the spatial relationships between them. The seven-meter high earthen wall, facing the street, protects the site from the noise and visibility of Jimma Road, thus revealing its building qualities to the public. The office with its simple, clear volume forms a representative facade parallel to the street and the protective wall. In the connection to the other wing, the passage leads to the wider complex. Here opens the garden and the opposite pavilion-like residence, with its diversified volume. The dialogue between inside and outside, the different uses and individual spatial references shows in the center, the garden, the high quality. Landscape In the access zone between the street and the chancellery, plants/mosses are planned that can both bind the dirt and noise and at the same time not form a visual obstruction in the zone. These will be placed systematically, linearly along the facade to the entrances, guiding the visitors to the interior of the chancellery, as well as to the focal point, the garden, and further to the residence. The rest of the site, free of emissions, is designed as a generous garden, with different qualities, and can only be experienced on foot. The altitude of the property (approx. +2350m.a.s.l.) lends itself to the creation of an ethio-alpine space, in which various useful, medicinal and ornamental plants create places of tranquility and concentration. Within the residence, in the courtyard, the garden is complemented by another green oasis. This, in its cross-like form, serves as a connection and at the same time forms the gradation of privacy of the spaces. Lot 2 will be transformed into a colorful, somewhat wilder orchard, with avocado, mango and papaya trees, after construction is complete. Thus, the area becomes usable, without major intervention. Team: Suter plus Gmbh (www.suterplus.ch) Deborah Suter (team leader) Arthur de Buren, Julia Mauser