design et al are delighted to announce that Cittolin Polli & Associes SA has been shortlisted for Ski Chalet Award in The International Design & Architecture Awards 2019.
Chalet in Verbier represents a contemporary architecture, designed with quality materials, able to provide a beautiful panorama of the Swiss Alps. This chalet was built by the architectural firm Cittolin Polli & Associés SA in 2008 and underwent partial renovation in 2015. The renovation allowed redefining the space to offer an extra bedroom and a reorganisation of the master bedroom, guest bedroom and fitness room.
This intervention has also helped to give a particularly poetic and audacious spirit in keeping with the lifestyle and the spirit of the customers. Additionally, this chalet is punctuated by a soft mix between the vernacular and the design: the raw and local materials are awakened by touches of design while being worked in an innovative way. In the chalet, it is possible to admire true life-size pictures, creating the effect of walls becoming alive to tell their story in each room. The mirrors play with the light and reflections of the images in order to give perspective and a sense of space. It is possible to understand that the walls are all specifically chosen according to the spaces; vernacular materials have been used so as to work in an innovative way.
One important aspect consists of a “mirror and light game”, in order to give the feeling of more space and cosiness inside the chalet. The mix between traditional and original design offers an interesting view of the “chalet”, imagined and interpreted nowadays. The overall aim is to take over the vernacular codes and to work them with a modern interpretation.
In conclusion, the traditional old wood coming from the old chalets of the Swiss Alps has been worked by local craftsmen specialists.