Architects: Boltshauser Architekten Area: 60 m two Year:
2021 Photography: Kuster Frey
Lead Designers: Felix Hilgert
Designers Team: Giuseppe Pascoli, Léon Bührer, Miklós Doma, Yves Péclard
Style Team: Regina Pötzinger, Robert Gentner
Construction Management: Giuseppe Pascoli
General Coordinator, Amount Property Surveyor, Site Supervision: Boltshauser Architekten AG, Zurich
Structural Engineering: SEFORB Sarl, Uster, Jörg Habenberger
Civil Engineering: KIBAG Holding AG, Bäch
Lighting Specialist: Reflexion AG, Zurich
Prestressing Engineering: Jakob AG, Trubschachen
Rammed Earth Specialist: LEHMAG AG
Structure: Keller Unternehmungen AG, Pfungen
Master Home Builder: Ineichen AG, Baar
Timber and Metal: Nüssli AG, Hüttwilen
Materials: Rammed earth, earth brick masonry, timber, metal, upraised concrete, tensile steel
Makers: Jakob, Ineichen, KIBAG, Keller Unternehmungen, LEHMAG AG, Nüssli, Terrabloc, Ziegelei Schumacher
Earth Building: LEHMAG AG, Brunnen, in collaboration with students from numerous universities
Earth Brick Masonry: Terrabloc SA, Geneva
Earth Product: Ziegelei Schumacher AG, Gisiken
Customer: Verein Ofenturm Ziegelei-Museum, Cham
Location: Cham
Nation: Switzerland
Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum extends the historic brickworks site in Cham with a speculative structure that combines museum usage, renewed brick shooting, exhibition screen, and public access. Designed by Boltshauser Architekten with contributions from TU Munich and ETH Zurich trainees, the task translates scholastic research on premade rammed earth into a developed model. Its approximately eight-meter-high watching platform permits visitors to observe the listed ensemble, while the interior accommodates exhibitions and a new kiln. The tower presents unfired clay as both a construction material and a cultural subject, linking the museum’s industrial heritage with modern questions of resource use, taking apart, and reuse. Its prestressed earth-and-timber system is conceived for structural efficiency, material legibility, and ultimate disassembly, positioning the job as a research study instrument along with a visitor center.
Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum does not just accompany the museum’s historic buildings; it reactivates the reasoning of the place through a material that precedes shooting. The project draws attention to the moment before clay ends up being brick, placing earth not as a sentimental recommendation however as a modern construction resource with technical, spatial, and ecological relevance. The Brickworks Museum inhabits the only intact making it through handcrafted brickworks in German-speaking Switzerland. Its ensemble includes a lumber brick-drying shed, an obsolete historical kiln, the biotope of a previous clay pit, a domestic building with gardens, and a museum building that replaced a barn lost to fire. Within this setting, the tower presents a vertical element that clarifies the site’s academic role while remaining closely tied to its commercial origins.
The design originated in academic research study. In 2017, students in a guest professorship at TU Munich developed proposals for a new kiln tower on the museum premises. A term project by Sophia Brellenthin and Moritz Penker ended up being the basis for
the developed work, while additional advancement involved students from TU Munich, ETH Zurich, and other universities. The rammed earth elements were produced during a 2019 summer season school at ETH Zurich on the grounds of the previous cement plant in Brunnen, under the supervision of LEHMAG AG. This process made the project both a structure and a pedagogical workout in earth building. © Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey Kiln Tower for the Brickworks
Museum/ Boltshauser Architekten 35 Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum/ Boltshauser Architekten 36 The tower’s structural system provides the job its architectural character. It is referred to as the world’s first prestressed earth structure, adjusting lessons from an earlier mock-up at the Sitterwerk near Saint Gallen. Given that rammed earth carries out mainly in compression, the project integrates earth walls with tensile steel aspects. In Cham, the tension bars are put visibly on
both sides of the wall, offering the structural concept a direct architectural expression while permitting access to the clamping components.< img width= "750"height ="1000"src ="// www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20width='750'%20height='1000'%20viewBox='0%200%20750%201000'%3E%3C/svg%3E "alt ="Kiln tower for the brickworks museum/ boltshauser architekten"data-src="https://www.architecturelab.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/kusterfrey-boha-turm-cham-iiq-0021-0246.jpg "/ >< img width="750 "height= "1000"src="https://www.architecturelab.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/kusterfrey-boha-turm-cham-iiq-0021-0246.jpg "alt= "Kiln tower for the brickworks museum/ boltshauser architekten"/ > Inside, the exhibit space and adjoining kiln are confined by earth walls and capped by a stiffening lumber ceiling. The atmosphere is shaped by the weight and texture of the unfired material, strengthened by the huge existence of the kiln wall. Open joints between the prefabricated earth elements create narrow light slits, revealing the depth of the wall construction and contrasting the mass of earth with the precision of steel tension members. These bars likewise provide a practical support system for exhibit panels and display aspects. A steel spiral staircase causes the viewing platform above, where the tower ends up being an interpretive device for the whole brickworks ensemble. From this elevated position, visitors can understand the relationship between clay extraction, drying, shooting, habitation, and screen. The tower therefore operates at several scales: as an item within a safeguarded commercial landscape, as a museum tool, and as a research study model for rammed 
earth building and construction.< img width="667" height="1000"src="// www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20width='667'%20height='1000'%20viewBox='0%200%20667%201000'%3E%3C/svg%3E "alt ="Kiln tower for the brickworks museum/ boltshauser architekten"data-src="https://www.architecturelab.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/kusterfrey-boha-turm-cham-0021-0219.jpg"/ > © Kuster Frey 
< img width="1140"height="761"src="// www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20width='1140'%20height='761'%20viewBox='0%200%201140%20761'%3E%3C/svg%3E" alt ="Kiln tower for the brickworks museum/ boltshauser architekten"data-src="https://www.architecturelab.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/kusterfrey-boha-turm-cham-0021-0261-1140x761.jpg"/ >
© Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey< img width="563 "height="1000" src= "// www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20width='563'%20height='1000'%20viewBox='0%200%20563%201000'%3E%3C/svg%3E"alt="Kiln tower for the 
brickworks museum/ boltshauser architekten “data-src =”https://www.architecturelab.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/publikation-lehmturm-ziegeleimuseum-cham-4-explosionsaxonometrie.jpg”/ > Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum/ Boltshauser Architekten 37 The task likewise resolves a repeating difficulty in prefabricated earth building. Rammed earth blocks are normally restricted by transportation and assembly restrictions, and their joints are frequently filled by hand after installation. In Cham, those joints stay visible and enter into the architectural idea. Instead of concealing prefabrication, the tower utilizes it to explore modular assembly, structural performance, and the expressive capacity of building traces. A 2nd innovation lies in the combination of timber base plates within the wall system. Each earth aspect was rammed on its own plate, which supported handling while the product was still fairly soft. Grooves beneath the plates guide raising straps, while weather condition leaks included on site safeguard the earth from disintegration. Trass lime was likewise rammed into horizontal layers and corners to provide extra resistance at susceptible points. The tower was developed with dismantling in mind, responding to a requirement that it be detachable after 10 years. Its prestressing system can be detached from the earth components, allowing the blocks to be taken apart without dealing with the product as waste. The open joints, integrated base plates, and autonomous block structure all assistance this reasoning of reuse. Even the earth mix reflects a circular technique, integrating building and construction waste as part of the material composition. Through scientific monitoring, the project extends beyond its immediate museum function. It checks how rammed earth may add to future construction in Switzerland, where large quantities of excavated earth and clay are produced every year however stay underused. By demonstrating the structural, spatial, and reusable qualities of unfired earth, the Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum provides a precise architectural argument for minimizing dependence on energy-intensive products while reconnecting building culture with local ground conditions. Job Gallery © Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey< img width="750"height="1000 "src="https://www.architecturelab.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/kusterfrey-boha-turm-cham-iiq-0021-0649.jpg"alt=" Kiln tower for the brickworks museum/ boltshauser architekten"/ > © Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey< img width="750" height="1000" src="https://www.architecturelab.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/kusterfrey-boha-turm-cham-0021-0019.jpg"alt="Kiln tower for the'brickworks museum/ boltshauser architekten"/ > ©'Kuster Frey
< img width="667" height="1000" src="https://www.architecturelab.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/kusterfrey-boha-turm-cham-0021-0183.jpg"alt="Kiln tower for the'brickworks museum/ boltshauser architekten"/ > ©'Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey © Kuster Frey Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum/ Boltshauser Architekten 38 
Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum/ Boltshauser Architekten 39 Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum/ Boltshauser'Architekten 40< img width= "1140 "height ="641"src= "// www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20width='1140'%20height='641'%20viewBox='0%200%201140%20641'%3E%3C/svg%3E"alt="Kiln tower for the brickworks museum/ boltshauser architekten"data-src="https://www.architecturelab.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/publikation-lehmturm-ziegeleimuseum-cham-1-erdgeschoss-1140x641.jpg"/ > Kiln Tower for the Brickworks 
Museum/ Boltshauser Architekten 41 Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum/
Boltshauser Architekten 42 Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum/ Boltshauser Architekten 43 Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum/ Boltshauser'Architekten 44 Kiln Tower for the Brickworks 
Museum/ Boltshauser Architekten 45 Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum/ Boltshauser Architekten 46 Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum/ Boltshauser Architekten 47 Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum/ Boltshauser Architekten 48
Job Place
Address: Cham, Switzerland
The area is provided for general recommendation and may represent a city or nation, rather than a specific address.