SwissHouse XL by Davide Macullo Architects
SwissHouse XL is a house in Coldrerio, Switzerland, designed by Davide Macullo Architects for a young local family with deep ties to the area. Completed in 2023, the project takes its cues from rural building types and the village edge, where the historical core meets more recent expansion. An octagonal plan, cut roofline, and exterior stair give the home a clear figure without losing its connection to place.
About SwissHouse XL
SwissHouse XL has a strong and distinct character, recalling traditional rural buildings. Set at the edge of the historic core of Coldrerio, it occupies a context where small structures once supported the agricultural work of local families.
The octagonal plan is more than a formal move. It creates a slight detachment from the orthogonal grid of recent urban growth without fully breaking from it, and it also refers conceptually to 19th-century architecture in the region, including architect Croci’s triangular house in Mendrisio.
The new single-family home is made for a young local family with deep physical and emotional ties to Coldrerio. Together, the aim was to shape a built environment that fits both the urban and landscape setting while absorbing the historical character and gradual development of the area.
The project places strong emphasis on the building’s position between two urban conditions: the historic core on one side and the more recent expansion on the other. That transitional setting informs the central octagonal form, conceived as an urban pivot and as a gesture of a house beyond the walls, marking its place within the rural landscape.
A west-facing cut at the top of the volume visually lightens the north elevation and recalls the vertical proportions found in the region’s older architecture. The diagonally cut roof extends that dialogue, establishing a pitch that relates to nearby historic buildings and reinforcing continuity between old and new.
The exterior stair that links the garden to the first-floor terrace, where the living area sits, also draws from local building types. Here, that reference is reworked as a contemporary element with a clear territorial presence.
These compositional choices shape the architectural identity of the house through proportions drawn from the surrounding context. On the northern edge, a single-story garage volume aligns with older village buildings, tracing an ideal line of integration between the new construction and the historic fabric beside it.
The building carries a dual character, at once austere and gentle. Its presence recalls the labor of cultivating the land, yet it also takes on a sense of lightness through geometric cuts that sharply define the volume.
The interruption of the regular polygon reads almost like an excavation, a subtraction of matter from a precise primary mass. Like a large stone carved to capture the best orientation, it creates room for life in the zone between inside and outside, and the eye instinctively completes the original octagonal form.
That balance between solid and void, between containment and projection, gives the house its charge. The sculptural volume does not come from form alone; it is shaped by context, by a broader ecology, and by the human scale of the site.
Photography courtesy of Davide Macullo Architects
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