Severin Spörri

Pfarrhuus, Schöpfli and Schüür - Three theses for Bubikon:

1. Honour the existing.
2. Know you are a role model.
3. Be open to your neighbours.

The parsonage of Bubikon, a large house from 1947, a house that everyone in the village knows. A house where everyone has their own memories, whether through religious education, as neighbours or in the Cevi. A house I live in, and which now stands at the centre of a debate, as it is to be demolished to make way for a profit-oriented housing development.

This proposal intends to counteract this plan, coming from the neighbourhood, the village and the church, and to trigger nothing less than a reformation in the minds of the church community. The existing embodied energy is not to be demolished but reused. This house and this place certainly do not deserve to be dismantled and thrown away.

The plot occupies in a prominent location in the centre of the village, bordering the school grounds on two sides, and should continue to be a place that attempts to unite the public and the private. Especially in places like Bubikon, at the border of the agglomeration, densification is a big topic. Nevertheless, it shouldn’t be seen as demolishing, building new and completely change the ecosystem. The proposed Pfarr-Gut respects the existing trees, open spaces and built houses. It therefore proposes an extension of the parsonage, a conversion of the Schöpfli and a new childcare for the Mitlistberg primary school with the aim of creating synergies and strengthening a lively village structure. A pastor and his family will continue to be able to live in the parsonage, and the house will evolve into a multi-generational residence also occupied by a youth workers’ flat-sharing community and a retirement flat-sharing community. The parsonage will thus form a new community and yet remains an official house. On the ground floor facing the garden, the rectory communal room will remain available for church events and is supplemented with a youth area in the annex.

The Schöpfli is an economic building, as its name suggests, and nothing else should be demanded of it. It is to be converted into an unheated workshop with minor adaptations. Furthermore, the Cevi should have a meeting and storage room in the attic. The ensemble will be completed with an after-school care centre. This will be run jointly by the parish and the church and will be built on the land of the parsonage.

The future will only work together, we should start now and rethink the rectory and its surrounding to really build onwards.