Using the geometry of a square inscribed in a circle, raphael zuber's first built work is an elegant assertion of architectural wonder on the quiet swiss landscape. in his winning competition entry for a school and kindergarten, zuber envisioned a building of quadrate proportions that interacted with the sloping green landscape of a public square in the bucolic town of grono. the realized building makes manifest a garden as a circular crater,overgrown with flowers and walnut trees that doubles as a play area for kindergarteners. the building stands in the middle of the garden with a rising bridge that quietly curves into the first floor.  the concrete slabs that make up the structure are brown pigmented in situ to match the local soil and are further subdivided with non-load bearing elements. the physical presence of the concrete borders on delicate given the euclidean cutouts that further multiply the layers of geometric inscriptions.the symmetrical plan allows each floor to be oriented in all directions, all vertically linked with geometrically identical quarter ellipses.these ninety-degree arches are tied by pre-stressed cables, their loads subsequently transferred to central bearing points. the structural slabs seem to lift from the center of each face of the building, giving the school an air of simultaneous lightness and heaviness. the visual effect is one of kahn-like proportions and a monumentality that reverberates through the landscape.their is a richness to an architecture this honest-- direct in materials and unabashed in its problem solving. the space begins to evoke the intangible qualities of magnificence and complexity.