The Swiss have long held a reputation for creating products of impeccable precision. Tilo Herlach, Simon Hartmann, and Simon Frommenwiler, partners in the Basel-based HHF Architects, have found early international success by turning that stereotype on its head. That’s not a knock on the firm’s work. In the short time since the opening of their studio in 2003, the young trio’s focus on simple, straightforward, and buildable design, rather than a fastidious attention to detail on projects whose construction they had very little control over, has helped them swiftly complete eye-catching structures in Europe, Mexico, the United States, and China.
Among the first of these projects was a children’s pavilion, Baby Dragon, built in 2006 in Jinhua, China. HHF had been recommended by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron — those other Basel-based architects — to prominent artist Ai Weiwei, who invited over a dozen young, international designers to create structures for a park in memory of his father, the poet Ai Qing. The Swiss newcomers and the Chinese impresario hit it off and began collaborating on a number of projects. Together they completed the Tsai Residence and Artfarm, a private home and a gallery in upstate New York for two different collectors of contemporary Chinese art. For Ai’s Ordos 100 project in Inner Mongolia, HHF is the only firm to design two houses, one of which is finishing up construction.
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