A 1930s semi-detached house in Zurich renovated by Ductus, keeping its white 1980s floor tiles and adding Pink Perlino marble, timber, and concrete

1930’s House Zurich is the renovation of a semi-detached house in a quiet residential neighborhood of Zurich by Ductus. The house was built in the 1930s and renovated for the first time in the early 1980s by an architect couple, who laid a grid of white floor tiles typical of that period. Ductus treated both layers as worth keeping: the third renovation updates what the house needed to function while leaving the evidence of its first 2 lives in place.

The technical work was comprehensive. Ductus replaced the heating system and windows and renewed the bathrooms, surfaces, and fireplace. The 1980s tiles were kept wherever possible, with new tiles laid only where originals were missing or damaged. The small white rectangles run through hallways, transitional spaces, and staircases, wrapping the edges of raised floors and plinths, and they are the thread that ties the rooms together.

Against the tile, Ductus set warm timber joinery and monolithic concrete. In the kitchen, timber cabinetry fills a raised alcove behind a freestanding fireplace whose concrete hearth extends into a bench and a block-like table, while the chimney breast is finished in coarse, heavily textured white render. Elsewhere, full-height timber panels conceal doors and storage, and a second white fireplace sits on a terracotta hearth beside a built-in log store.

The bathrooms carry the project's most deliberate material shift. Pink Perlino marble lines the shower, its warm tone and geometric veining set against the white tile, and a concrete wash counter with an integral sink sits in a timber-lined room. Rounded furniture edges, corner mirrors, and an oval window cut into a corrugated metal door refer back to the softened geometry of the house's 1930s architecture.

Completed in 2024, the renovation does not return the house to either of its earlier states. The 1930s plan, the 1980s tile, and Ductus's timber, concrete, and marble stay legible as separate layers within the same rooms.