The Philosophy
Founded 2015 — Zürich, Porto
We are interested in what a building does after everyone stops looking at it.
Monohaus is a practice of fourteen people working between Zürich and Porto. We take four projects a year and finish two. The work is slow because the decisions that matter — where a building faces, what it is made of, which room is allowed to be useless — cannot be made quickly and cannot be undone.
Four working rules
01
Orientation before plan
Which way a building faces is the only decision that cannot be revised. We settle it on site, in person, before a plan exists.
02
Material from nearby
We prefer what can be dug, cut or fired within a day of the site. It fixes the building to one place and ages at the same rate as its surroundings.
03
One useless room
Every project keeps a space with no assigned purpose. It is the first thing value engineering attacks and the last thing we give up.
04
Finish as found
We specify the state a material will reach, not the state it leaves the workshop in. Weathering is part of the drawing.
Founded
2015, in a former print works in Zürich
People
Fourteen, including three model makers
Studios
Zürich (Kreis 4) and Porto (Bonfim)
Work
Four projects taken each year, two completed
Recognition
Mies van der Rohe nomination 2025 · Swiss Timber Prize 2024
Teaching
ETH Zürich, Studio Vallier, since 2021
The best compliment our work receives is that nobody mentions it. They describe the light instead.
Ines Vallier, founding partner