We would love to come back to Switzerland as our 5 kids miss their Oma & Opa but intend on keeping one foot on the beach :-)
If you email me some plans maybe I could take a look at them?
Thanks very much, actually ICF was invented in Switzerland over 30 something years ago so hardly anything new, as it's been a while I'm starting to work on numbers.
Then I'm afraid you don't understand SG. Or at least not the village part of it. Not as extreme as Sz perhaps (a bit more space) but still goes in that direction.
How very informative Nejc, yes you are right in all aspects, my buddy who is in Basel (Also Architect) and a couple of others I know would I'm sure help us out and yes we have the funds to get projects through also.
It's funny how negative some of these comments are when we are from there and looking to move back so our kids can grow up Swiss.
Just figured this was a good place to ask advice as it's been a long time since we did anything in Switzerland and wanted some boots on the ground advice which many of you gave willingly Thanks so much for that.
I'm saddened by all the naysayers who are not Swiss telling me to take my Swiss ICF (Invented in Switzerland) system my Swiss Wife and Kids and bugger off, I would be coming back bringing jobs and money to the country not living off it. Was just checking if this idea would work thats all.
As I said it's the layout not the outside look that is different in general, walk in's, kitchens, bathrooms etc., we just know a lot of people moving to Switzerland for business and would like to build with them in mind.
Good luck to you all
Uf, I hope you didn't found too much negative in my post. Ugliness (or beauty) is always in the eyes of observer and I usually don't want to judge architecture too much about its appearance.
Actually I wanted to tell you that if you are able to bring your housing on market you will be sure able to sell them. Just be very conservative while estimating how much time you will need to build it. Swiss is moderately bureaucratic (depends from where you are coming) but at least things move in a predictable way. which is very very good.
And make a research what do they thing about ICF here. They prefer everlasting materials (stone, bricks, mortar, inox, aluminum), styropor is not loved at all and wood is connected with too much maintenance. We are working a lot with bricks that already have isolation in (i.e. unipor coriso). Then you just have thick walls (40 - 50cm) with render on each side. Seems like this is great enhanced traditional material that plays nicely on 21st century swiss soul.
You have had hardly any negative responses, just ones either assuming things you didn't give enough information about or others warning you how difficult it might be.
If you persist in getting annoyed at the responders, e.g, calling them "ball-busters" you may start getting some proper negatives.
Stick around, chill out a bit, and you'll see that your welcome here has actually been quite warm.
As for your idea - I'm not convinced. I've visited many homes in the US, particularly places where space is not at a premium, like Colorado, and seen the sort of thing you're talking about, with huge walk-in wardrobes, multiple bathrooms, etc. etc. Yes, they work quite well in that environment, but I'm not convinced that the cost/benefit ratio will work so much in their favour here.
All else apart, the number of ex-pats living in self-owned individual houses is probably only in the tens of thousands (maximum, quite possibly only in five figures), and most of those would anyway be long-termers adapted to the local ways of doing things, so your potential market is probably really only a few hundred people in the whole country. And of those, only quite a small proportion will be looking for the sort of thing you propose.
Good luck, though.
I have always wanted to live in a traditional American style home. How do you find casting the concrete to form the angled walls?
I had something more like this in mind:
One of the key advantages of my "traditional american style" home is that I am to take it with me when I travel in search of food. This search could take me as far as Germany.
Would these newly built "traditional american style" homes also be easy to pack away and taken to a new location?
I concur that Swiss architects are often over rated. There may be a small number of high flyers out there but very many are just copycats who have been building more or less the same houses since the 1970s. On closer inspection this isn't pure laziness on their part but there are good reasons for this. If you have the opportunity you might find it insightful to chat with such an architect and see their view and motivations. Especially if you are looking at the lower end of the cost spectrum, you will see quite a lot of innovation going on in terms of alternative materials and methods. I am sure if there were easy fixes out there to do things cheaper without sacrificing quality, somebody would have done it by now.
Other effects are that the Swiss generally believe in modesty. You thus just don't see houses that shout, a rich person lives here. Differentiating factors are more subtle than that. An American style villa that shouts "my genital organs are too small and I'm building this to make up for it" will thus not meet broad approval, and this may limit the attractivity of the house. Trying to work round that by saying, your target market are rich expats who won't know what the neighbors are saying behind their back is maybe not a genuinely sustainable business model.
If you have been here the you'll know those McMansions are just not going to work here. For one thing, the house to land ratio will make it too expensive. You'll need a large plot to put that large house. Land is at a premium and in short supply. So really, you'll have to adapt your plans to the local environment.
But I'm sure you know that already. So, I guess as Ace says, you're question is a bit vague.
Welcome anyway and good luck. Don't mind us. Our bark is worse than our bite.
Well, I have been living in a little village of 1800 people for the past 2 years, but I suppose you're right, I don't understand it...
I may live in Switzerland, but I would loooooooooove to have my American style kitchen, with an oven large enough to bake a 20+lb turkey and a fridge / freezer large enough that I don't *have* to shop every week.
Meanwhile, neither style of architecture (thinking of houses in New England and Swiss styles) is truly to my taste. I much prefer houses that would be traditional in the American Southwest, with Spanish tiled roofs, vaulted ceilings to help put the heat of summer overhead, and central courtyard allowing ALL of the rooms to have windows on multiple sides for better ventilation.
Such a thing could (would) be murderous to heat here though, so I will bide my time in my tiny Swiss apartment until such time as the US gets her sh*t together again and hubby and I can move "home". (Really, I'm gonna go crazy if I'm in this apartment much longer, I'm looking forward to finding an old farm house in one of the smaller villages nearby )
Personally we are fans of architectural styles that blend in nicely with the natural landscape, many homes here seem to be way too big for the lot sizes despite the fact that they have a .25 % building ratio in our area. There are lots of tricks and exemptions that allow people to build out to the maximum as even the local Geminde pointed out to us when we met with them. Recently someone built a brand new huge traditional Swiss Chalet down on the water and I swear there is no land left around that house except on the waters edge. What a shame, but glad I'm not their neighbor.
On the note of architect fees and their champagne stuffed refrigerators, we first met with an architect from Stadt Luzern who quoted us outrageous building costs so we decided to keep the champagne for ourselves and got a more reasonable quote from our local firm.
LOL yes you pour the walls and just push them togeather
KiwiJay, I'm still curious - what price range are you targeting?
We have the same 'tall poppy syndrome' in New Zealand like Switzerland has where we try to mow everyone to the same height. If a house is done tastefully inside and out it fits anywhere in the world, and some people will never get it because they simply just don't get it or have never lived it. People like the creature comforts of home no matter where they come from, bigger stove, bathroom, a shower you can actually stand in, a mud hut, a fish n chip shop, a meat pie or a laundry you can actually do your laundry in or a boat at the end of your dock. I moved to the states and had some of the same ideas but realized they have the space we so desire in Europe, interiors planned properly don't need much more space just more open plans.
Simply put if someone can afford what they want they can get it and although that angers some people here that is the way of the world, as many homes we have done have won awards for using no energy, being hurricane proof (3 of my homes stood through hurricane Sandy here in NY while everything else around them was gone.)
The stucco I use won't burn (zero after 16 hrs)so houses don't burn and is the first 100% waterproof stucco invented, our concrete flooring systems span more than 30 feet without supporting walls messing with the layout and radiant heat is placed right in the slab. It took a while for this system to take in America where they build with wood (still don't get that) but now it is recognized as the hands down best building system available that you legally have to build all government buildings with it.
All this said it is still faster and I think cheaper than building with brick, Pronton or anything else and a lot more greener as they use less energy.
Have a nice day thanks for all the nice comments and sorry to hear that all the naysayers had their backs up about new but not so new ideas.
Generally speaking the higher end to start out but it is scalable once we are up and running to build smaller or apartment blocks.
I think the explanation is easy: those 'stick-built' homes they're cranking out a-mile-a-minute are really cheap to build compared to what you do. When finished, they look impressive, but they're still lightweight mostly-air structures that need tons of fiberglass insulation to make up for the minimally insulative properties of the building materials.
I once was involved in the advertising for a similar builder in Texas, and after reading their sales text, I thought if I ever build a house, I'd like it to be built like that. Only thing missing (so far) is the money...
I don't mean to be a pain (well not much ) but given that we are talking Swiss prices 'higher end' is sort of a meaningless term. Here in SZ, higher end might well be 8 figures. But most of that is the price of land.
Could you give a rough back-of-the-envelope estimate of construction cost per m2 for one of your designs? I promise I won't hold you to it, if and when I find that piece of land I've been searching for... PM me if you feel that is more appropriate.
My email is [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) put down what you are looking for construction wise and I'll gladly work something up for you.