Hello Wood Stacks a Pink Timber Food Hall, Beer Garden and Tree Houses onto a Former Zürich Freight Yard

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Q: What is "Hello Wood Stacks a Pink Timber Food Hall, Beer Garden and Tree Houses onto a Former Zürich Freight Yard" about?

This article covers topics related to Landscape Design, Commercial Buildings, Urban Furniture, Living Building, Reclaimed Timber, Wood Construction, Building Design. On an abandoned rail yard in Zürich West, a three-level CLT complex of terraces, tree houses and blue steel stairs turns street food into civic theatre.

Zürich West has spent two decades converting rail land and factory floors into offices, towers and the occasional cultural venue. Most of that conversion comes in grey, glass and polite beige. Hello Wood, the Budapest design-and-build studio that has worked in the city since 2019, decided this abandoned freight yard needed something louder. Remise Rosa is a 2,500 m² hospitality and community complex on three levels: food stalls, bars, a restaurant, a beer garden, event spaces and rest areas. It also runs a year-round lunch service for a nearby school. All of it is built from prefabricated cross-laminated timber stained a deliberate, unapologetic pink.

The colour gets the attention. The more interesting story is the method. Hello Wood made its name with temporary installations: festival pavilions, experimental structures and playful one-offs. Here the studio tries to carry that improvisational energy into permanent architecture without losing the precision a permanent building needs. Lead architect Balázs Szelecsényi describes the goal as standing out from colourless industrial surroundings. We think the project's real achievement is quieter. It shows that a CNC-cut kit of timber parts, assembled in five months, can produce something with the density and surprise of a village rather than the flatness of a pop-up.

A Freight Yard Repainted

Aerial view of stacked timber terraces with pink planters and umbrellas, framed by construction cranes at dusk under a pink sky

Top-down drone view of a timber pavilion and gravel courtyard dotted with pink umbrellas beside a street in bright daylight

Aerial view at dusk of the lit pink terraced complex beside rail tracks, with a striped chimney and viaduct beyond

Timber-slatted pavilion with pink planter boxes and a rooftop terrace, red parasols and diners below a glass tower in afternoon sun

Seen from above, the complex reads as a cluster of timber decks and planters stepping up from a gravel courtyard, with rail tracks, a viaduct and a striped chimney on one side. Construction cranes still frame the dusk aerials, which is a useful reminder that this is a district in transition. Remise Rosa lands among half-finished neighbours and glass towers, and it makes no attempt to match them.

The name matters too. A remise is a depot or shed, and the project keeps that railway memory in its loose, yard-like plan. Rather than one sealed volume, you get a scatter of terraces, covered bays and enclosed rooms arranged around open ground. It works more like a market than a building, and that suits a site where people arrive from several directions.

Entering Through a Timber Vortex

Square timber frame holding a spiral of crossed wooden slats, with diners seated behind pink mesh railings in warm evening light

Courtyard facade with a circular timber fan detail above the bar sign, framed by birch leaves in warm evening light

Close-up of radiating timber struts and pink planter boxes seen past blue mesh stair railings and birch branches

Layered timber arch framing a glazed hall beyond, with a man checking his phone on the gravel beside planter boxes

You enter through a frame built from repeated timber beams, each rotated slightly from the last, so the square opening twists into a spiral. It is the clearest trace of Hello Wood's installation background: a single repeated element turned into a gesture you can read from across the street. Elsewhere the same logic shows up in radiating fan details over the bar and layered arches that frame a glazed hall.

These pieces only work because the fabrication is exact. Every member was digitally modelled and CNC-cut in a factory to millimetre tolerances, then assembled on site. The spiral looks casual, but it depends on the kind of accuracy that hand-built festival structures rarely have.

Blue Steel as Circulation, Not Decoration

Blue steel stair with mesh balustrade climbing toward pink-painted timber terraces, with a woman standing on the landing under a bright summer sky

Elevated view of a blue steel staircase crossing pink-planted terraces above a gravel courtyard with umbrellas and seated diners at dusk

Blue steel staircase with mesh railings rising toward a timber fan-shaped frame and pink planters under a clear sky

Pink stair with blue railings rising to a rooftop terrace with a red windmill, string lights and diners under scattered clouds

Dusk view of a blue steel staircase rising through the timber and pink complex, with string lights and a neon sign

Against all that pink timber, the stairs are cobalt blue steel with mesh balustrades. The contrast does practical work. In a complex with several levels, bridges and terraces, the blue tells you where the routes are before you have worked out the plan. One pink stair with blue railings climbs to a rooftop terrace with a red windmill, and the colour coding flips without losing its legibility.

We like that circulation is treated as an event rather than a back-of-house necessity. Stairs cross over the courtyard in full view, so moving between levels becomes part of the evening's entertainment. At dusk, with string lights and the neon sign switched on, the steel reads as a set of lit paths through the timber mass.

Pink as a Site Strategy

Courtyard bar facade of timber balconies and pink planters, with diners at tables below under red umbrellas and a flowering tree

Pink planter-topped terraces with timber frame, red parasols and railings, with diners at tables under scattered clouds

Close-up of pink cladding, timber beams and red parasols against a clear blue sky with slim steel tie rods

Slatted timber wall with the neon-style Remise Rosa sign beneath pink planters and red umbrellas over a gravel terrace

It would be easy to dismiss the pink as branding. It is branding, and the name makes that explicit. It is also a working answer to a real problem: how does a modest, low-rise timber structure hold its own among towers and rail infrastructure? Height is not an option, so colour does the job. Pink planters line the balcony edges, red parasols shade the tables, and the stained CLT carries the palette through the whole structure.

The close-up of pink cladding, timber beams and slim steel tie rods tells you the colour is applied to an honest frame rather than hiding one. You can still see how the building is put together. That keeps the scheme from sliding into theme-park territory.

Water Wheels, Windmills and the Logic of Play

Blue steel wheel with radiating spokes beside a pink umbrella and pink timber walls, set against a cloudy sky

Gravel courtyard with pink umbrellas, a blue wheel structure and timber terraces, seen through birch leaves on a bright day

A blue steel water wheel turns beside the timber walls, and a red windmill sits on the roof. Neither is needed for the programme. Both signal that this is a place for lingering, not throughput. They also nod to the mechanical heritage of a former rail yard, where moving machinery was the whole point of the site.

Play elements like these usually age badly once the novelty wears off. Here they are built in rather than bolted on, drawn into the ground plan next to the bar and kitchen. That gives them a better chance of lasting as part of the place's identity.

Ground Level: Gravel, Benches and Shade

Undulating pink slatted bench winding between dark timber columns beneath a blue steel staircase, with a couple seated on the right

Wavy timber bench with pink-stained slats and a ribbed dark staircase beside a flowering shrub in a gravel courtyard

Gravel lane lined with red parasols, potted trees and timber balconies, where people sit on an elevated deck in warm evening light

At grade, the complex stays loose. Gravel underfoot, potted trees, birches and a wavy pink-slatted bench that winds between dark timber columns under the stairs. The bench is the best small move in the project. It turns the leftover space beneath circulation, normally dead zones, into the most sociable seating on the site.

The gravel lane lined with parasols and raised decks gives the courtyard the feel of a street rather than a terrace. People sit at different heights, watching each other across levels. That layered sightline is what makes the place feel busy even when it is only half full.

Tree Houses, Lookouts and the Enclosed Hall

Slatted timber lookout box with a pink planter volume beside it, a person reclining on the balcony and birch branches in front

Double-height cafe interior with timber beam ceiling, green columns, spiral mesh stair and wooden chairs, daylight streaming through tall windows

Up top, slatted timber lookout boxes act as small tree houses where visitors can recline on balconies above the crowd. They give the upper level a sense of retreat and offer the kind of semi-private nook that big food halls usually lack.

The enclosed hall shows a calmer side of the project. A double-height café with a timber beam ceiling, green columns and a spiral mesh stair takes daylight through tall windows. This is the room that makes the year-round programme credible, including the school lunches, when Zürich's winter empties the terraces.

Plans and Drawings

Ground floor plan drawing showing a central garden, bar, kitchen, guest zone and water wheel arranged around an open courtyard

First floor plan drawing showing a cluster of tree houses linked by cable bridges to rooftop terraces and a gallery guest zone

Roof plan drawing showing terrace decks, a star-shaped group of tree houses and long cast shadows across the site

Section drawing B cutting through a two-level masonry volume with a water wheel and timber terraces stacked above

Long section drawing A showing timber walkways, a suspension bridge and stairs, with small figures standing in the ground-level spaces

The drawings explain what the photographs only hint at. The ground floor arranges a central garden, bar, kitchen, guest zone and water wheel around an open courtyard. The first floor gathers the tree houses into a cluster joined by cable bridges to rooftop terraces and a gallery. The roof plan shows those tree houses in a star-shaped group, which accounts for the fan geometries seen from below.

Section B cuts through a two-level masonry volume with timber terraces stacked above it. This suggests the lightweight CLT layers sit on a heavier base rather than rising entirely from the ground. Long section A shows how walkways, stairs and a suspension bridge string the levels together, with the ground floor kept open for movement.

Why This Project Matters

Remise Rosa tests a question many studios are asking: can the freedom of temporary architecture survive the move to permanence? Hello Wood's answer depends on prefabrication. The same CNC precision that lets a spiral frame read clearly also lets a 2,500 m² complex go up in five months on a disused rail site. Timber here is not a sustainability badge attached to a conventional building. It is the medium that makes speed, repetition and playfulness possible together.

There is also a lesson for regeneration districts. Zürich West, like many former industrial zones, risks becoming a place you pass through between offices. A low, colourful, porous complex that feeds schoolchildren at noon and hosts a beer garden at night offers a different model: public life first, image second. Whether the pink holds up over a decade of weather and changing tastes remains to be seen. For now, it gives the neighbourhood a place to gather that none of the surrounding towers provide.

Remise Rosa Complex by Hello Wood, Zürich, Switzerland. Area: 2,500 m². Completed: 2026. Photography by György Palkó.

About the Studio

Hello Wood

Official website of Hello Wood, one of the studios behind this project.

hellowood.eu

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