Urban Chalet Alpenrose

Urban Chalet is a holiday home in the Swiss mountains, looking out onto the waters of Lake Lucerne,
in the town of Ennetbürgen. It is built on the ground of an old family dwelling, where the new entirely
wooden architecture stands, built using ecological techniques excluding the use of glues and chemical
components, preserving the natural features of the material. Floors, walls, supporting elements,
beams and pillars are made in the factory from drawings, then assembled on site using joints and
wooden dowels. The result is an architecture without the use of cement, pure, sustainable and
profoundly linked to nature.
The project is intended to bring the traditional imagery of the chalet into an urban mountain context,
translating its characteristics of welcome and hospitality in a contemporary vein. The distinctive
elements are the wide windowed frontage and the large roof, recalling the old barns of the Alpine
tradition. The warmth of the chalet is found again inside, where arched beams support a structure with
exposed wooden rafters. The building is structured on four levels, connected together by the large
wooden staircase housed in the bow window that runs all the way along the rear façade. The roof
covering, made of bronze coloured plate, envelops the attic and the panoramic terrace overlooking
the lake. The outer walls are covered in oxidized larch panels, a choice that is in dialogue with the
materiality of the surrounding nature and brings out the beauty of aged wood.
With Urban Chalet, here AMDL CIRCLE gives concrete shape to the research into an architecture that
endeavours to respect the characteristics of natural materials and as far as possible is responsible as
regards production cycles. The project is balanced between the built environment and the landscape,
between tradition and innovation, between sustainability and living comfort.