City centre development

St. Margrethen (SG) has a population of about 6,000. The village is located at the end of the Rhine Valley, in the border triangle with Germany and Austria. With the new downtown development, the community has gained a more vibrant village center that serves as the starting point for the newly designed Bahnhofstrasse. Its location right at the roundabout, next to the community center and mineral baths, makes the new building very attractive—including in terms of transportation, with the train station and highway access in the immediate vicinity.

The downtown development consists of a continuous ground floor (“Building B”), a 7-story end building (“Building A”), and a three-story building (“Building C”). Coop operates a supermarket on the ground floor, while Buildings A and C primarily contain rental apartments. The chosen scale and varying heights respond to the town’s existing buildings; the outdoor areas, which face two sides and feature loggias and balconies, are generously proportioned.

The solid structure, built of cast-in-place concrete with plastered exterior thermal insulation, is complemented by curtain-wall concrete elements dyed a light beige and an extensively landscaped flat roof. Heating and hot water are supplied by the wood chip plant of the St. Margrethen heating network, supplemented by two photovoltaic systems with a total capacity of approximately 60 kWp.

The greatest challenge was the confined building site: The excavation had to be partially secured with a sheet pile wall, the groundwater level lowered by 2.5 m, and the nearby springs of the mineral spa protected in the process.