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dorsa + 820
Architectural Collective
Zurich
«Much like the Voyager spacecrafts launched in the 70s carrying messages to a potential, extraterrestrial audience, we too send out signals and hope for resonance.»
«Much like the Voyager spacecrafts launched in the 70s carrying messages to a potential, extraterrestrial audience, we too send out signals and hope for resonance.»
«Much like the Voyager spacecrafts launched in the 70s carrying messages to a potential, extraterrestrial audience, we too send out signals and hope for resonance.»
«Much like the Voyager spacecrafts launched in the 70s carrying messages to a potential, extraterrestrial audience, we too send out signals and hope for resonance.»
«Much like the Voyager spacecrafts launched in the 70s carrying messages to a potential, extraterrestrial audience, we too send out signals and hope for resonance.»
Please, introduce yourself and your studio…
We are dorsa + 820, based in Zurich. We operate as an architectural collective that consists of two individual entities. Together we have opted for an interwoven, complementary and optimistic way of practicing architecture. Our collective emerged out of the need for resources within the fierce Swiss competition environment. dorsa + 820 serves as our shared vehicle built upon values, interests and friendship. To remain open and porous we launch individual exploratory missions from this dynamic mothership. Much like the Voyager spacecrafts launched in the 70s carrying messages to a potential, extraterrestrial audience, we too send out signals and hope for resonance.
Left to Right: Pan Hu, James Horkulak, Yufei He, Lewis Horkulak, Nicolas König
How did you find your way into the field of architecture? What comes to your mind, when you think back at your time learning about architecture?
Coming from different backgrounds, we all met at the ETH in
Zurich for our master studies. Along the way, we experienced a paradigm shift in architectural discourse, framed by a global and planetary crisis that challenges the traditional role of architects and the architectural practice. We left university as supposed generalists and utopists but found ourselves in a specialized and highly fragmented reality. At first, this situation seemed overwhelming and the positions of generalists and specialists impossible to unite. However, as dorsa + 820 we today believe that it is necessary and possible to weave these polar identities together: the technical and the poetic, the local and the global, the personal and the collective, the terrestrial and the cosmic.
Migrating Palm, 2024
What needs to change in the field of architecture according to you?
Here a few thoughts, incomplete and in random order:
- practice architecture beyond the economic
- architecture needs to be more visible to prevent bird collisions
- less comfort, less layers plz
- architecture needs to help us to transform from Promethean fire gods to modest water beings
- solarize architecture (beyond pv cells)!
- architecture needs to bridge the gap between inside and outside ;)
Solar Grill Prototype, 2023, with Ansgar Stadler
What is your personal utopia?
We try to avoid to have a fixed image in mind. We prefer the untamed day-dream over a concrete utopia. We hope that all life forms find spaces of resonance and support each other in doing so.
How would you characterize the city you are currently based at as location for practicing architecture? How is the context (of this specific place) influencing your projects? What meaning does location have to you overall?
Before coming to Switzerland, the alpine region existed for us only as a distant, idealized image, shaped by tales of Heidi and the global reputation of Swiss financial institutions. With the start of our studies, however, our perspective on the country and its landscapes began to shift. We came to understand the significance of Swiss infrastructure – this vast spatial and temporal machine that enables modern life. When we boil water in the morning this machine comes to life, reminding us that somewhere in the Alps an unimaginable amount of water blasts through the turbines of some hydroelectric powerplant.
These monumental structures intricately connect city and hinterland, fostering a sense of national identity while sustaining the standard of living we have grown accustomed to. Yet, we can’t ignore how norms, building regulations, financial institutions and – if we’re honest – our own temptations perpetually strive to extend this standard of living to extend beyond the boundaries of growth. This perception shapes our work in Zurich, and so our designs are always critical examinations of our way of life: what is essential, what holds lasting value and what has become untethered from its time?
What does your desk/working space/office look like at the moment?
Solar collector, Samsung monitors, and postcard stands.
Atelier Space
What is the essence of architecture for you personally?
Mediation between spaces, resources, living beings, ideas, and time.
If there were one skill you could recommend to a young architect to study in depth at architecture school: what would it be and why?
We believe it’s important to move beyond the world of dichotomies. Modernity has produced a monstrous array of opposing pairs: science/politics, individual/collective, culture/nature, object/subject... The most beautiful balance lies in their collapse.
What is your favorite tool to design/create architecture and why?
Our fingers and iOS Notes. We love the thick colorful pens on the black background in iOS Notes. Sometimes the 5 of us sketch together simultaneously even if we’re far apart.
IOS Notes Sketches
Do you think AI is changing the field of architecture? (What does it mean to you? How do you use it?
We welcome AI as a new, creative silicon-based lifeform and look forward to an enriching cultural exchange on "equal footing".
We hope that AI, on this circuit-hostile water planet, also takes an interest in architecture and dedicates itself to the struggle for watertight building envelopes.
What do we need to look at?
- Pan: Ways of Being, James Bridle, 2022
- Yufei: Richard Misrach’s photographic cactus series in the American deserts, 1979
- Nicolas: Buckminster Fuller’s trimtab metaphor
- James: The Horse Whisperer, Robert Redford, 1998
- Lewis: Daisyworld by Lovelock and Watson
Project 1
Open Competition
Visp, 2024, 1. Prize
SANDY is the new school building that extends and reimagines the school campus “Sand” in Visp, originally designed by Paul Morisod and Edouard Furrer in the 1960s. It transforms the fractured layout of the existing brutalist ensemble into a cohesive sequence of learning landscapes that enable new pedagogical concepts while integrating with the natural life cycles of its environmental “neighbors”.
The project proposes to open up the existing multi-purpose hall between the school courtyard and the Visper River to create a direct connection to the northern lawn, while to the east, a new compact school building frames and completes the cascading courtyard sequence. At the heart of the campus lies the Grove of the Future – an ecological space that allows rainwater infiltration and the growth of pioneer vegetations. Sealed soil across the campus will be transformed into a mosaic of diverse natural spaces, providing a dynamic learning landscape that weaves together ecological and educational functions.
The new school building is a timber-concrete hybrid structure that accommodates a primary school, a kindergarten, a communal canteen / auditorium and a double sports hall. To minimize excavation and reduce its environmental footprint, the sports hall is positioned above ground, crowning the school building. Inside, a central flexible learning landscape, flanked by classrooms, extends outdoors with a biotope tower and a winter garden. An elevated gallery allows the children to move freely between indoor and outdoor learning landscapes, creating a kind of open-air environment that enriches the educational experience. After all, it’s never too late to get your hands sandy.
Architecture: dorsa + 820
Landscape: studio erde
Structure: Davide Tanadini, Dr. Neven Kostic GmbH
MEP: Amstein + Walthert AG
Image
Model
Project 2
Open Competition,
Val d’Hérens, 2024
How do you build in a liquid context, where even the foundation soil is in constant flux? The Refuge des Bouquetins, a mountain shelter comprising a guest hut (1975) and a guard hut (1991), stands at an altitude of 2,980 meters in the Arolla Valley of the Swiss Pennine Alps, within the Val d’Hérens. Over the years, the existing structures have been sinking by several centimeters annually due to the thawing permafrost beneath them. To address this issue, a partial reconstruction project has been proposed within a newly designated, geologically more stable perimeter close by. The existing guard hut will be retained and integrated into a new infrastructural system.
At the heart of this proposal is an entrance lock, designed as a rock tower constructed from gabions filled with stone which reappear from the melting ground. This central tower anchors the structure, with three concentric wings radiating outward like paddles, providing stability by distributing the weight across the unstable ground, much like balancing a boat on melting ice.
The wings host modular spaces, which are connected to the central lock and designed for flexibility, allowing them to be replaced or reconfigured in the future. This new structure openly acknowledges the environmental realities that have forced its relocation, making the project both a refuge for mountaineers and a testament to the impact of human-induced climate change.
Architecture: dorsa + 820 with Thomas Compeers
Landscape: studio erde
Structure: co-struct
Image
Website: dorsa-820.com | dorsa.cc | 820.ch
Instagram: @dorsa.collective | @820.works
Photo Credits: © dorsa + 820
Interview: kntxtr, kb, 03/2025