No barriers to practice

BM: Among the many reasons that might explain the rising number of architecture offices, an important one is that in Switzerland it’s relatively simple to start a company with limited capital and infrastructure. Of course, there’s some administrative work, but if two architects share similar interests—and perhaps a knack for numbers—they can establish an office without much red tape. There are still some administrative hurdles but compared to other countries, it’s not that complicated. A comparable model exists in Germany, where it is easy to start a small business without much capital, but in countries like Spain, Italy, and France, starting a company is very complicated—especially if you have employees. You have to deal with taxes, social security, and a lot of paperwork. In Switzerland, it’s less complicated, and you can start with a little investment that motivates architects to be self-employed or set up small businesses. 

PM: There’s another important aspect to consider. As Bettina said, take Germany for example: there, you need at least five years of experience and membership in the chamber to submit a building permit. Each region has its own chamber: when we worked on a hotel project in Munich, we had to join the Bavarian chamber. If you want to build in Berlin, you need to join the Berlin chamber, and so on. It requires registration, paperwork, and prior office experience before you’re even allowed to submit a permit. In Switzerland, it’s completely different—even an amateur with no architectural training can submit a building permit. That’s a huge contrast. Here, “architect” is not a protected title—anyone can call themselves an architect.

Creative vision, business precision

PM: In our final two semesters at ETH, we worked with a private client on the design of a new house. Instead, we proposed converting his existing one—and that’s how it all began. We finished our studies in December 2015, and by April 2016 construction had already started. We even received the building permit during our last semester and prepared all the construction plans while completing our master’s. Our story shows once again how, in Switzerland, you can enter the profession immediately—even with little experience. From the beginning, we were two architects and Bettina, an economist. We didn’t just want to run an architecture office; we wanted to build a serious business that combined design expertise with strong financial and organisational foundations.

BM: Architecture is very different from, for example, being a self-employed photographer, where the risks are mainly around branding or copyright. In architecture, if you build something that doesn’t work, the risks are huge. We worked in a shared space with many self-employed creatives, whose risks were much lower than those of architects. Architects invest more money and bear more responsibility. You need insurance and must manage risk carefully. So we knew from the beginning that business management and risk needed particular attention and an office structure to do that. 

Most architects are highly creative but tend to be chaotic in managing their offices. With that in mind, we wanted to start with a bit of administration from the beginning. I was still at university then, but we aimed to avoid the common trap of having great projects but no clear overview of earnings, no contracts, unclear salaries, or insurance. That was our goal. There’s a clear separation between our firm's creative and administrative parts. I didn’t study architecture, so design questions naturally fall to Pascal. He’s the architect, and clients expect him to lead on that. They want his expertise and presence on-site; it wouldn’t make sense for me to take that role. Being myself an economist, my role is completely different. Over time, I’ve come to understand the processes better, and I help with contracts and budgeting once construction starts. But I’m mostly a shadow behind the scenes—and that works well for me.

PM: She is a crucial shadow! In a firm with about five employees, working at 500% capacity, around 20–30% of everybody’s working-time is administration. I’m currently working 60% at our office. . If I had to handle all of it myself as an architect, I’d lose half my time to administration.

BM: Exactly. Pascal should focus on his passion, which is architecture. And I should focus on my field of expertise. I see many offices where architects waste their time on time-consuming admin instead of their creative work—and I think that’s a great pity. 

Deliberately rural

PM: Most of our projects are located in rural areas, villages, or mountains, and they usually involve the conversion of existing buildings. These are two defining characteristics of our work: location—rural—and typology—existing structures. I grew up in the countryside, studied and lived in Zurich and Singapore, but eventually decided to return because of the quality of life in rural areas.

BM: Both of us grew up in the countryside, so we know the people and the local builders. Also, in Zurich there are many architects, everything is short-lived, and there is a lot of anonymous competition. In the rural areas, long-term collaboration, friendships and stability is more important. People know each other and know what they get or can expect.

PM: It just felt natural for us, but we also realised that rural areas often lack the same quality of building found in cities. That’s something we want to change, and we still aim to contribute through our work. Many villages are beautiful but struggle to adapt into places fit for 21st-century living while preserving their character. We put a lot of effort into analysing the site and the existing building first. Often you discover that what’s already there works well, so the task becomes adapting it rather than tearing it down. Our goal is always a self-evident building, one that naturally fits its location without needing explanations. 

BM: If you just put a house on a greenfield according to the client’s wishes, maybe in the future AI or software could do that. But the value we bring as architects is adding thought and care to every detail—something no program can do. We’ve had bigger clients wanting large family houses with many flats, but our office isn’t built for fast, robotic production.

PM: We always involve clients closely—teaching and learning from them. They bring their own ideas about living, but sometimes those don’t suit the site, so we work to discover the core of their vision and build around it. It’s better to build for the location than just an abstract idea or wish. I’ve been taught to build for a hundred years—even though nobody lives in one building that long. You build for current and future occupants who need to understand why the building is the way it is. That’s why I like architecture that feels “without architects”—buildings that explain themselves through materials and site. 

Places that evolve

PM: In rural areas, it’s often your neighbour who reviews your building permit. That has its advantages—they know you, and it’s socially easier—but also drawbacks, as they don’t always understand architectural quality. In big cities, you discuss on a professional level; in villages, you have to explain things differently. It’s a different mindset, and it’s hard to learn, maybe a talent, maybe experience. Whenever working with a new client, we always analyse the site carefully, and we often emphasise that a building is not just private—it needs public aspects too. This is tricky because in cities, the outside facade is usually public. In rural areas, you might have a lawn, a fence, then the street. But the space between the fence and the facade can act as a public space, so designing that facade well is important, but it’s often the hardest part to get clients to understand.

BM: It’s sometimes tough for people to grasp that the value of their house goes up if the surrounding area matches and is cared for. If your house is next to a car park, its value and your enjoyment of the object will be diminished. But if that car park becomes a public park, suddenly it’s much more valuable and pleasant. Clients have to see that they’re a small piece of a bigger puzzle, and if everyone contributes their part to the community space, the whole village becomes stronger. It’s a hard conversation, especially in the countryside. And now, as cities grow and spread into valleys, rural areas have to deal with urban challenges, even if their mindset isn’t urban yet.

PM: And identity is essential. Every place deserves its own character—take Schwamendingen, a suburban district of Zurich, which should be recognised for itself and not just as “Zurich.” Architecture shapes that identity; it defines who you are and where you live. But building is never finished. Every 20 or 30 years, something changes. After WWII, Switzerland often built and tore down because money was abundant. Before that, people adapted and added to existing structures. Today, sustainability means doing the same: preserving what exists, extending, and converting. Buildings need to be flexible, ready to evolve over time. 

Materials should endure, but the architecture itself should remain dynamic. Historically, buildings accumulate layers—a Gothic church might have Baroque additions, both valuable. We shouldn’t erase these layers. We’re moving away from the idea of a “clear” house built in one moment. Buildings grow and change. Layers from the ’50s to ’80s often used poor materials and may need replacing with natural materials. But sometimes even this plastic has a historical value. It’s about preserving identity, not freezing a building in time.

Guiding growth

PM: In urban areas, we’ve also entered larger-scale competitions, where we propose our vision for how a village can evolve over time. Large projects today often aim to rebuild entire neighbourhoods — say, 200 flats where only 15 existed before—usually with uniform architecture. We believe that approach doesn’t suit villages. In one project, our idea was to create small neighbourhoods of four buildings each, forming shared outdoor spaces. These clusters interact with one another, creating diverse, connected areas that reflect the village’s evolving character. A village, like a building, is never finished; it’s always changing. 

BM: This type of competition is called a synthesis plan, where a handful of offices are invited to propose a strategy. Out of 10 invited practices, three or four ideas were selected, including ours. However, the client ultimately decided not to include us in the final process. Smaller offices like ours often face this challenge because communities tend to prefer larger, more established offices for security reasons. But the ideas remain, and we keep working to convince people. And these concepts help us prepare for future challenges—population growth, urban expansion, social change. It’s exciting to see how thoughtful rebuilding can address these issues.

PM: Räumliche Dorfbilder is another project, essentially exploring the same concept. It’s quite theoretical, but it encapsulates our approach: deriving building rules from the existing village fabric and expressing its identity.  

The historic centre of a village in Switzerland is already quite public, but new neighbourhoods developed outside these centres also need an identity. That’s where this whole project began. We explained to the community and the local government that it’s not enough to preserve identity in the historic areas—we also need to shape identity in the newer parts. That’s essentially the idea behind the Räumliche Dorfbilder. If you look at these villages in the map, you can clearly distinguish buildings constructed before 1970 from those built between 1970 and 2020. The village’s character is really different in these areas. Historically, development followed the street or clustered around the train station; now it spreads everywhere. But even this newer growth needs a coherent identity—and that’s where we started. 

Keeping it real

PM: On a smaller scale, a representative project for Ruumfabrigg is the Geren house in Amden. It’s a mid-18th-century building that the client bought with the intention of converting it. They had previously worked with another architect and already had building permission, but the collaboration ended. The client then asked us to take over, and we agreed—on the condition that we could have the freedom to create a new approach, or at least assess what had been done and determine what we wanted to add. The idea was that the ground floor had two rooms in the front, one in the middle, and two in the back. The previous architect wanted to break down the walls, make one big space, take down the ceilings, open the house to the roof, and enlarge the windows. When we started, we tried to explain to the client what gave the house its identity and quality. Its character lies in the many small rooms, the low ceilings and the small windows.

We showed them a picture of a dark room with a small window. In front of the window, there's a chair. In the background, you see the weather approaching. We told them: The sense of security in this dark space is a huge quality. These small rooms, the shell of the house—it’s comforting. So it would be wrong to tear it all down and make it open. It’s actually better to keep the rooms—and even make more rooms. So now, per floor, instead of five rooms, we have seven. Everything is connected, so the ground floor is like a walk-round—you can go through all the rooms in a loop. And the house is really small—about 10 by 7 meters—but when you walk through it, it feels really big. Something changed in their minds. They were convinced by the idea of keeping it small—with small windows.

The most important thing about this project is that we were able to explain the house’s qualities and keep them. This project really represents our work: trying to explain the qualities and identities—and then working with them, trying to preserve them.

The radical act of preservation

PM: Besides Ruumfabrigg, I also work for the Schwyz cantonal preservation authority. In many ways, it’s similar to my own practice, but here I work for the community. My title is Bauberater, and I advise people on how to build and maintain historic structures. In the canton of Schwyz, we have about 1,000 listed buildings—roughly 2% of the total building stock. Our role is to preserve them, care for them, and explain to owners that these buildings are more than private property—they hold public interest, representing a culture and a time. Some buildings in Schwyz date back to the 12th or 13th century, meaning they are more than 700 years old. Their value is immaterial, tied to heritage and continuity.

In Schwyz, about 50–60 buildings date back to the 13th and 14th centuries, from the very beginnings of Switzerland when ordinary people formed a free society. These historic houses tell the story of Swiss identity. We study, protect, and explain their value, since written records only appear from the 16th century. Many assume these old buildings are worn out, but the 600-year-old wood is still in excellent condition. Yet today, people often prefer something new, despite the durability and history of these structures.

It’s our job to explain that there’s a public interest in these houses—and even if you’re the 30th or 31st owner, you can’t just tear it down because you don’t like it. These buildings need to stay in private hands—it doesn’t work for the public to own all of them. But they must be protected. We need to convince people how to work with them, and explain how to do that. And this is really the only role in architecture or cultural history where preservation is the starting point. In my office work, people come and say, “We want to tear it down and build something new”—that’s the starting point. But here, the starting point is: “Preserve it.” In the end, both paths lead to the same result. Old buildings have a lot of character because of the damage to the materials. And preserving them is also the most ecological way to build: keep as much as you can—and add.