BAU LÜTZ
Meyrin. Transforming an existing home
SWITZERLAND · CANTON OF GENEVA · COMPLETED WORK
Renovating a home also begins with what is removed. In Meyrin, four photographs from the site tell the story of the interior refurbishment: internal demolition, clearing rubble, work on wall surfaces and the removal of a wooden floor. They show stages of the work carried out, not the finished home.
The work before the new finishes
The first image takes us into the working space. A worker gathers fragments from the floor with a shovel; the home’s surfaces and coverings remain visible in the background. The transformation becomes tangible through the materials being removed and the rooms where the work is taking place.
This part of a renovation usually disappears from photographs of the finished result. Here it is the starting point: refurbishment is about more than how rooms will look; it also involves the work that precedes the new finishes. The existing home remains present throughout the transformation, in its openings, passageways and surfaces still visible alongside those being stripped out.
Walls, openings and surfaces
Two portrait-format photographs bring the interior work into closer view. In the first, work is taking place beside a window opening, with bricks and rubble on the floor. In the second, two workers are working on the wall surfaces. The views complement each other: one shows the relationship between the opening and the room, while the other draws attention to the work itself and the surface.
The opening, the wall and the room are not separate elements: they belong to the same living space. Light and traces of the coverings make this continuity apparent even during the work. For anyone looking at the site, it is an invitation to understand the existing space as a whole before focusing on what the individual finishes will look like.
The floor from another perspective
The final photograph documents the removal of wooden flooring beside a window. The lifted pieces, those still in place and the worker’s activity show the surface and its transformation together. The floor offers another perspective on the refurbishment, complementing the work on the walls.
Changing an interior means considering how these parts relate to one another. Decisions about flooring, coverings and the use of rooms make sense within the overall project, not simply through the choice of a material. In Meyrin, the photographs bring attention back to the practical moment when an existing surface is removed.
A story of working with what exists
Meyrin places the physical reality of renovation at the centre of the story. When working with an existing building, design questions meet rooms, surfaces and conditions already in place. Observing them is the starting point for distinguishing what is to be changed from the checks needed to do so. This relationship between understanding a place and deciding how to intervene connects the site photographs with the Bau Lütz method.
Clearing rubble during internal demolition.
Internal demolition beside a window opening.
Work and removal of materials from interior wall surfaces.
Removing wooden flooring during the renovation.