My top story this week, the opening of a small square in #Bürchen, #Switzerland by #FernandoMenis

Among wonderful mountains the inauguration of this square, built on Bürchen, Switzerland, will take place on the 11th October.

This intervention in a public space, designed by the architect Fernando Menis, will be a new public space where tradition and timeless design will be in harmony.

The peculiarity of this square is due of its distinct characteristics: the illumination and the used materials for the construction.

The illumination will work as a play of lights that will be changing, interacting this way with people that will be walking there.  Different lights will be also changing according the season of the year. Local materials were used with the purpose of combining modernization and at the same time as a way to preserve the natural landscape and views. The use of timber as the main material, with its large local history, allows the reopening of the timber factory, generating employment in Bürchen.

This was a challenge to rethinking and reconsidering a place for the foreseeable future, a touristic space that can be also characterized by its breathtaking nature.

Although being a public-private investment, the project has a strong social character, while making a profitable business for investors. This will work as an economic engine for Bürchen by increasing tourism, generating a positive synergy that will activate the timber activity of the village. 

This is one of the many projects that Fernando Menis, founder of his own studio , has been built around the world.

Fernando Martín Menis

Architect, Associated Professor at the University of Hong Kong (UHK), the European University of Madrid (UEM) and Canarias (UEC) and Chairman of the Laboratory for Innovation in Architecture, Design and Advanced Tourism of Tenerife. Member of Jury, Workshop Director and Guest Lecturer at Harvard, Columbia NY, ESA Paris, TU Berlin Universities, Akbield Wien Academy and at Architecture Congresses in Switzerland, Australia, India, Singapore, Taiwan, China, South Africa, Croatia, Italy, Poland, Colombia, Mexico and so on.

He is the author of many projects like the swimming pool of the Spree River at Berlin, of Tenerife  Magma Art & Art Congress Center, the Adeje square in Spain or the Church of Chumberas, part of a collection of MOMA New York. 

For further information please visit:  www.menis.es