Office

Office Profile

The work of Corinna Menn’s architecture office covers a wide spectrum of architectural assignments, involving various contexts and scales. The team’s core expertise lies in design and in project and implementation planning, whereby the office’s public and private commissions are largely the result of competitions and feasibility studies. As a working method, this mirrors a belief in design driven by repeatedly renewed research. Anchored in this is our deep interest in finding and formulating specific architectural interpretations and providing open-minded and open-ended answers to the pressing issues of the times.

Corinna Menn grew up in Chur and studied architecture at ETH Zurich, graduating in 2000. Her studies were flanked by a year’s traineeship in Berlin and exchange studies at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. After working for Herzog & de Meuron Architekten in Basel, she then went on to found her own architecture office in 2002. Following her first realised buildings in Grisons, she relocated her office from Chur to Zurich and expanded her field of work.

The office’s projects deal with issues that commonly arise in alpine and rural but also urban settings. Based on an understanding of cultural and material sustainability and longevity, place and object constitute the starting points for all the projects, as well as providing a vital creative source. In both realised and planned projects, the crucial endeavour is to draw productively from the contexts of protected landscapes and cultural heritage, as well as the idea of building with the existing. In terms of architecture, the designs are distinguished by the perpetual themes of structure, space and material tectonics. Whether it be new buildings, remodelling conversions or infrastructure projects, the office’s work is also characterised by ideating and implementing innovative load-bearing concepts. As well as concentrating on smaller individual objects, at an urban-planning level the core skills of the office and the team lie in the development and repurposing of large-scale sites for new residency or new mixed uses. This wide range of critical frictions not only demands interdisciplinary collaborations with other specialists but indeed are stimulated by them.

As a corollary, the office’s deep interest in Alpine living environments has also led to providing long-standing consultancy services, giving successful professional building advice in Grisons and Vorarlberg.

The office’s buildings have been awarded various prizes, including: the Prix Acier 2007, Auszeichnung Gute Bauten Graubünden 2013, the Best Architects Award 2015 in gold, and the Seismic Award 2018. The office’s earlier projects and buildings appeared in 2009 in the monograph series Anthologie 11 with Quart-Verlag, followed by being showcased in various professional national and international publications.

The work realised in the office is mutually coupled with academic teaching. Following positions at the Lucerne School of Engineering and Architecture (2009–2010) and the University of Liechtenstein (2018–2019), from 2021 to 2023 Corinna Menn taught as a guest lecturer for Architecture and Design at ETH Zurich.

Curriculum Vitae Corinna Menn

Professional Practice

Consulting Expert Activites

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Engagement in Professional Associations

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