The Roost

As a university design project, ‘The Roost’ concerns people’s movement across water and overland. It hypothesises collaborative community development through the enjoyment of local, shared space, in this case, Lake Lucerne and its shoreline. From conception to construction to use, The Roost embraces and exemplifies commoning as an adjective, an active participant in the larger Swiss context and disposition.

Near the town of Vitznau and sitting on the lake’s edge, the rammed-earth building is a transition point, connecting the beach below to the road above and a community of adventure seekers to shared equipment/resources. It is a place to keep, upcycle and restore small boats, kayaks, rafts and equipment. Along with a workshop, the building offers a shared washroom/toilet, kitchen and sleeping dormitory for tired and cold sailors, mountaineers or divers.

Partially underground, the building rises in the form of a tower with an entrance at road and beach levels. It's materiality changes from concrete to rammed earth as it grows from the ground, representing the transition from below to above practically and atmospherically. Concrete walls are used to retain the surrounding earth and the excavated matter is then processed, mixed and rammed to create the remainder of the tower walls. Concrete lintels are placed where necessary, and troughed steel spanning elements are vessels for the earth-trodden floors.

Spatially, The Roost is split into two; the Northern side is an open circulation space with a central void and vertical winch system, while the Southern side holds a stack of thermally closed living/working spaces. The structural and thermal necessity for deep walls allows them to be inhabited with niches and stairways, similar to castles studied by Louis Kahn or the stone ruins I was raised by in rural Scotland and Ireland. As the building’s primary heat source, the kitchen is sandwiched between the dormitory and the bathroom. A wood-burning stove/oven funnels warm air into the dormitory above, heating the space quickly and efficiently while also providing warm water for the bathroom below. Sensitive to its environment, consumptively and visually, The Roost is a project that will continually evolve due to the nature of rammed earth as a material and the community that brings life to it.