Architektur / Basel / seit 2009

# We draw buildings that
are easy to build and
hard to throw away.

Werkraum is eleven people in one room on Klybeckstrasse. Housing, schools, workshops, one footbridge. We take on six projects a year and finish them.

42
  Built projects
11
  People
17
  Years
1
  Room

42 / Wohnhaus Sperrstrasse, Basel. On site, completion autumn 2026.
01

## The practice

We were two people and a borrowed plotter in 2009. The plotter is still here. So is the habit of drawing every project at full size before anybody talks about a facade.

The office takes work in three sizes: a house, a block, and a building the town has to live with. We do not chase competitions we would not want to win, which means we enter about four a year and lose most of them cheerfully.

Everything is built in Switzerland with people we can visit on a Tuesday. The furthest site from this desk is one hundred and sixty kilometres, and we would rather it stayed that way.

The room, Tuesday, half past nine.
Massing study, 1:500, Feldrain.
02

## Selected work

Forty-two built projects. Eight shown, newest first. Numbering runs in the order jobs were opened, which is why it skips.

1. No.Project Place Programme Area Year
2. 42 Wohnhaus SperrstrasseOn site Basel Housing, 24 units 3,180 m² 2026
3. 41 Primarschule RütiBuilt Rüti ZH Primary school 5,940 m² 2025
4. 39 Werkhof KleinhüningenBuilt Basel Depot and workshops 2,410 m² 2025
5. 37 Steg über die BirsBuilt Münchenstein Footbridge, 46 m span 46 m 2024
6. 35 Umbau Haus VogelsangBuilt Riehen Conversion, single house 260 m² 2024
7. 33 Genossenschaft FeldrainBuilt Bern Housing, 61 units 7,720 m² 2023
8. 31 Bibliothek AarwangenBuilt Aarwangen Library and archive 1,860 m² 2022
9. 28 Atelierhaus KlybeckBuilt Basel Studios, 14 units 2,090 m² 2021

41 / Primarschule Rüti
37 / Steg über die Birs
39 / Werkhof, junction at 1:20
03

## Four working rules

3.1

### One room, one conversation

Everyone works in the same room, at the same long table, on the same drawings. Nothing is presented internally, because nothing was ever hidden.

3.2

### Draw at 1:20 early

The junction decides the building. We draw the wall build-up in the second week, not the second year, and the plan follows what the wall turned out to want.

3.3

### Build what the trade knows

A detail no local carpenter has done before costs twice and lasts half. We invent where it matters and borrow everywhere else.

3.4

### Leave the structure visible

If a slab is doing work, it may as well be seen doing it. Fewer linings, fewer layers, fewer things to go wrong in year fifteen.

04

## Eleven people

- Ines Rüegg Partner, dipl. Arch ETH SIA 2009
- Marek Haldemann Partner, dipl. Arch ETH SIA 2009
- Sofia Brenner Associate, project lead 2014
- Tobias Wyss Associate, construction 2016
- Nour Haddad Architect 2019
- Lena Fankhauser Architect 2020
- Cyril Aebi Architect 2021
- Marta Oliveira Architect 2022
- Jonas Sieber Draughtsman 2022
- Ruth Bächtold Office manager 2011
- Emil Stucki Model shop 2018

05

## Three materials, mostly

A short palette is not a style. It is what happens when the same eleven people specify the same things for seventeen years and get better at them.

A

### Fair-faced concrete

Board-marked where it is touched, plain where it is not. We draw the tie grid ourselves and it is always on the drawing before tender.

B

### Untreated timber

Silver-fir cladding, left to grey. Clients are shown a five-year-old sample and asked to agree to it in writing.

C

### Screed and terrazzo

Poured on site, ground twice. The aggregate comes from within forty kilometres, which is a constraint and also the whole idea.

06

## Competitions and prizes

1. 2026 Auszeichnung guter Bauten beider Basel Wohnhaus Sperrstrasse Shortlist
2. 2025 Prix Lignum, Region Mitte Primarschule Rüti Second prize
3. 2025 Open competition, Schulhaus Aarwangen Aarwangen Won, in progress
4. 2024 Best Architects 25 Steg über die Birs Selected
5. 2023 Open competition, Genossenschaft Feldrain Bern Won, built
6. 2022 Swiss Timber Prize Atelierhaus Klybeck Nominated

07

## Four questions we get

Do you work outside Switzerland?
  No. Everything is built with people we can visit on a Tuesday, and the furthest site from this desk is one hundred and sixty kilometres.
Will you do a house?
  Sometimes. We take one or two a year, usually a conversion, and we are honest that a small house costs proportionally more of our time than a block of twenty-four flats.
How much does a competition entry cost you?
  About six weeks of one person, which is why we enter four a year rather than fifteen. We would rather lose slowly than badly.
Who draws the details?
  Whoever is running the project, at the same table as everyone else. There is no separate technical department and there never will be.

08

## Klybeckstrasse 191

Ground floor, courtyard side. Model shop at the back, plotter by the window, the good coffee on the shelf nobody can reach.

Post
  Klybeckstrasse 191
  4057 Basel
Write
  buero@werkraum.example
Call
  +41 61 000 00 00
Open
  Mon to Thu, 09.00 to 17.00

We read every application. Portfolios as one PDF under 10 MB, to the address above, any time of year.