Simon Becker-Wahl

The direct connection between architecture and location creates an inseparable bond between the two, from which neither one nor the other can separate - the context. The context of the former "Drei Könige" manor house has changed considerably since it was built in the 18th century - and especially in the decades of the 1970s and 80s - without the architecture adapting adequately to its changed context. At the time the foundation stone was laid for the inn it pioneered a new urban disposition beyond the city's secured walls. The building paved the way for Rheinfelden's urban expansion into its surrounding countryside.

The construction of the Basel-Zurich railway line and the motorway were the first major interventions in the context of the inn and transformed the situation from a suburban, rural area into an urban one. At the latest with the tunneling of the railway and the accompanying lowering of Zürcherstrasse, as well as the construction of the high-rise residential buildings on the site of the former spa park, the character of the inn, as it was during the construction period, disappeared completely. Its address formation became increasingly difficult, its original context disappeared, but a new, urban context, dominated by traffic, took its place. The solution of this conflict, the addressability, the insertion of the inn into its new context are the central tasks of the design work.

An ensemble of a total of four buildings, positioned on building areas across the area, with preservation of the existing vegetation, surrounds the existing building. Arranged in a sequence of squares, as a transit and recreation area for the neighbourhood to the rear and the newly created quarter. The ground floor zones are designed as urban space and private retreats are found on the roofs of the new buildings.

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