House in Balsthal, completed in 2013 and designed by Pascal Flammer is a timber house in northern Switzerland with rectangular and round windows harmoniously connected with a surrounding nature.
Located between a wheat field and a thicket of woodland, the holiday house is an archetypal wooden cabin with a steeply pitched roof and overhanging eaves, but also integrates modern touches such as full-height glazing and flush detailing.
The base of the house is sunken into the earth by 75 centimetres, allowing the surrounding ground level to line up with the bottom of windows that surround the building's lower storey. Large windows open to composed views of the wheat field. Whereas the ground floor is about connecting with the visceral nature of the context, the floor above is about observing nature - a more distant and cerebral activity.
The ground floor consists of one single family room with a noticeably low horizontal ceiling. In this space there is a physical connection with the nature outside the continuous windows. The space above is the inverse, with the floor divided into four equal rooms with 19 foot ceilings. — Pascal Flammer
