More than Housing: Cooperative Planning - A Case Study in Zurich 9783035604702, 9783035604689

Table of contents :
Preface
Introduction
1
The Founding of More than Housing
Zürich: More than Housing
2
Building onto the City
Collective Forms of Living
Discussion: architecture “It ‘s really terrific what became possible here!”
Discussion: Teaching Building “The Architect s DID Not Play the Key Role Here”
More than Open Space
Plans
Duplex Architekt en Buildings A and M
Miroslav Šik Buildings B, C, K
Müller Sigrist Architekten Buildings D, E, H
Futurafrosch Buildings F and I
Pool Architekten Buildings G, J, L
Discussion: Participation. Participation generates identification
Discussion: Participation. Participation generates identification
3
Trying Out Something New in Zürich: Comm unity Living on the Hunziker Areal
Seven Days in Leutschenbach
“My Home” Children’s Workshop OKIDOKI: Nicoletta West, Patricia Collenberg
Apartment Types, Occupants and Applicants in the Hunziker Areal
4
Is More than Housing Also a Model Energy Concept? Werner Waldhauser Interview with Christian Huggenberg
Are You Still Residing or Already Living?
An economy for the society, not a society for the economy
On a Low-tech Path to the 2,000-Watt Society
Socially Integrative: The Communal Garden in the Hunziker Quarter
5
More than housing — an ABC
Agenda
6
Biographies
Further reading
Picture credits
Thanks

Citation preview

More Than Housing Cooperative Planning —  A Case Study in ZÜrich

Margrit Hugentobler, Andreas Hofer, Pia Simmendinger (EDS.)

More Than Housing Cooperative Planning  —  A Case Study in ZÜrich

Eth wohnforum ETH case birkhäuser Basel

EDITION WOHNEN

BAUGENOSSENSCHAFT mehr als wohnen

Completed projects in Zürich, Bern, Lausanne, Geneva, and other regions are witness to the fact that nonprofit housing construction has repositioned itself as an innovative force on the housing market. A good example is the development by the housing cooperative programmatically named More than Housing, which is the subject of this publication. Today, the pressure on urban housing markets has made the provision of reasonably priced housing a key social issue, one that involves more than just providing living space that meets individual needs. The organizing body and its partner organizations involved in More than Housing have accordingly dealt intensively with questions of economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The different contributions to this book show how successfully these central concerns have been met. Consequently, not only the constructed result is exemplary, but also the development process which involved many discussions. It is to be hoped that the developer’s approach to realizing this project can set a trend for the way in which the forces involved in nonprofit housing construction can be effectively bundled at local and regional levels. The documentation of the development and implementation of this project, which has provided such a useful source of reference material for this publication, was compiled with the support of the Swiss Federal Office of Housing (BWO) and financing for the project on favorable terms was obtained with the help of federal funding. However, the greatest thanks are owed to the many individuals whose tireless efforts have led to the emergence of a not-for-profit residential neighborhood. Based on this example, it can only be hoped that the nonprofit housing model will find increased opportunities in other cities to prove its new-found dynamism. Dr. Ernst Hauri, Director, Swiss Federal Office of Housing (BWO)

4 5

5 Preface  Dr. Ernst Hauri, Director Swiss Federal Office of Housing Introduction 8 Margrit Hugentobler

1 14 The Founding of More than Housing Thomas Borowski 17 Zürich: More than Housing Dominique Boudet

2 28 Building onto the City Angelus Eisinger 34 Collective Forms of Living Daniel Kurz 40 Discussion: architecture “It‘s really terrific what became possible here!” Axel Simon 47 Discussion: Teaching Building “The Architects DID Not Play the Key Role Here” Axel Simon 53 More than Open Space Sabine Wolf 62 Plans 66 Duplex Architekten Buildings A and M 72 Miroslav Šik Buildings B, C, K 81 Müller Sigrist Architekten Buildings D, E, H 90 Futurafrosch Buildings F and I 96 pool Architekten Buildings G, J, L 105 Discussion: Participation Participation generates identification Margrit Hugentobler



3 116  Trying Out Something New in Zürich: Community Living on the Hunziker Areal Marie Antoinette Glaser and Nicola Hilti 119 Seven Days in Leutschenbach Susann Sitzler 124  “My Home” Children’s Workshop OKIDOKI: Nicoletta West, Patricia Collenberg 127  Apartment Types, Occupants and Applicants in the Hunziker Areal Corinna Heye and Sarah Fuchs

4 138  Is More than Housing Also a Model Energy Concept? Werner Waldhauser Interview with Christian Huggenberg 141  Are You Still Residing or Already Living? Robert Kaltenbrunner 146  An economy for the society, not a society for the economy Ursula Baus 151  On a Low-tech Path to the 2,000-Watt Society Andreas Hofer and Manuel Pestalozzi Socially Integrative: The Communal 155  Garden in the Hunziker Quarter Doris Tausendpfund

5 164 More than housing — an ABC Andreas Hofer 172 Agenda

6 178 181 182 183

Biographies Further reading Picture credits Thanks

1-6

6 7

Introduction

Margrit Hugentobler

Innovations are based on a vision. “Sometimes it drives me crazy that reality is so impenetrable,” says P.M., who has been publishing his visions of future forms of living under this pseudonym in Zürich since the 1980s and campaigning for their realization. It is a sentence that reflects the impatience of the visionary. This is understandable — visionaries do not want to wait to see their ideas implemented in some remote future. And that is as it should be, for visions need manifold energies to be implemented — and usually a lot of time. A quotation of frustration? Not at all — instead, a realistic assessment in view of the ­time needed for innovations in the residential sphere to gain a hold. P.M.’s observation is positive; it points in a different direction from the remark by a member of the Swiss Federal Government at the conference “Future Edifice Switzerland” to the effect that people with visions should seek a psychiatrist. A more interesting modification of the original statement by former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt would be: Anyone who has a vision should find allies! Nonprofit housing construction in Zürich has done just that. How do we want to live in the future? This is the question that inspired the project More than Housing. A new quarter, built on the so-called Hunziker Areal in the northeast of the City of Zürich and comprising thirteen residential buildings for some 1,400 occupants, was conceived with the aim of testing and realizing forward-thinking, high-quality accommodation by means of a broad range of innovations. So why undertake such a project — and how? The initial spark was ignited in 2007 — the year in which nonprofit housing construction in Zürich celebrated its centenary using the slogan: “100 years of more than housing.” This is a success story that has decisively shaped the character of the city. A quarter of the some 210,000 apartments in the City of Zürich are nonprofit, exempt from meeting return targets or land speculation and therefore reasonably priced. They belong to the city, to foundations under public law, and to housing collectives, which own almost 20 percent of them. It is difficult to imagine how contemporary Zürich, with its many years of an extremely tight housing market (in summer 2014 the vacancy rate was 0.22 percent), would look without nonprofit housing construction. Who would still be able to live here? It would probably be only members of the upper middle class who could afford to occupy the attractive apartments in the city’s districts that date from the late nineteenth century, the high-priced, renovated buildings in the old town, or the often luxurious new buildings belonging to institutional and private owners. Students, immigrants, the elderly, and other people on modest or average incomes, on ­the other hand, would live in mostly privately owned, unrenovated, or less well-renovated old buildings or in housing developments dating from the 1960s and 1970s, in many cases located on the city’s outskirts. It is an unattractive scenario: Zürich would be far less mixed, less lively, young, urbane, and attractive. The origins of nonprofit residential construction date back to 1907 and Daniel Kurz’s essay in this book places its development in a historical context. In 2007 Zürich’s housing collectives celebrated not only their centenary but also twenty years marked by energetic innovation. The somewhat fusty image of collaborative housing now belongs to the past. A shortage of housing, squatting, and the youth unrest in the 1980s led to the emergence of a movement and visions that were implemented in the late 1990s in the form of innovative new housing developments. The anniversary thus also provided an occasion to draw on these impulses in order to look confidently into the future and venture into new terrain.

Peter Schmid, president of the More than Housing cooperative and for many years president of ABZ, Switzerland’s largest building cooperative, as well as the Zürich Association of Housing Cooperatives, is one of the important strategists involved in these developments. He comments, “The new era began following the housing crisis in the 1990s. The responses of the housing cooperatives to this situation can be divided into four categories. One group was always active and kept building throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Then there were the innovators of the 1980s, the young organizations that tried out new things. A third group consisted of inactive cooperatives that at some stage began to wake up. The fourth category is still in hibernation. An important factor was also the target set by the city of building 10,000 large apartments within a period of ten years. Moreover, the fact that the city administration made land available for building and called for architecture competitions led to the emergence of good examples. There was also more networking at the level of cooperative associations. When I began working at the association in 1994, most cooperatives owning adjacent developments were not even acquainted with one another. Subsequent networking strengthened self-confidence. Kraftwerk1 was a cooperative that showed it aspired not to a form of accommodation for poor people but to self-determined housing. Democracy, co-determination, participation and self-organization were important themes. More than Housing has brought a broader perspective on the neighborhood into play. This new self-confidence and the diversity of new projects have generated an enormous potential for innovators. More than Housing has taken into account a range of social aspects: participative neighborhood development, commerce, living and working, and much more. The concept of a platform for innovation and learning has been of prime importance. More than Housing is the attempt to take up and combine elements offered by the innovators and the old cooperatives. The old make it possible for the young to provide new impulses, which in turn help the old to move forward. It is our job to come up with new ideas and develop them. This means we have to be at the forefront of innovation. We have conditions that private-sector developers don’t. For example, we don’t have the pressure of producing returns on investment. We have the possibility to think long-term and to invest in social sustainability because we don’t have to ensure short-term returns. And we can make mistakes — that’s a privilege,” says Peter Schmid. The innovative Zürich housing projects of recent years have also attracted great interest in other German-speaking countries and elsewhere in Europe. There ­are plenty of visitors eager to discover the Swiss secret. Promoting the construc­ tion of good-quality, reasonably priced housing will remain a challenge throughout Europe and the world in the coming decades. In this context, it is often necessary to correct conceptual misunderstandings. In other countries, but also in Switzerland, laypeople often equate nonprofit housing with social housing. And in many places social housing implies subsidization of apartments and rental costs by the state. It is the accepted view both here and abroad that social housing is necessary for poorer, often multiply disadvantaged population groups, including migrants, elderly people, students and people who for whatever reason fall through the net of a “successful life.”

8 9

Nonprofit residential construction in Switzerland cannot be equated with these ideas of social housing. As Peter Schmid puts it, “The word nonprofit is both a help and a hindrance. Nonprofit [gemeinnützig] housing means that what we are making generates a use for the society. The problem with the terms is that they imply something done in an honorary capacity, public and only for the poor. We see our work differently. In my view the only accurate terms are ‘oriented to the common good’ and ‘promoting general usage.’ In the cooperatives, rules concerning occupancy are usually voluntary, as is the decision to rent apartments out to people on low incomes. We are therefore not primarily there for the poor. We are a form of living. We are not of public utility in the sense of social housing. There are cooperatives such as Kalkbreite and Kraftwerk1 that engage on a social level in that they partly subsidize apartments for people on low incomes. But when I am abroad I tell people that we don’t actually have subsidization for housing construction; it’s homeopathic. As far as I know the Swiss government subsidizes actual housing construction with less than one Swiss franc per person per year.” The proportion of apartments in Zürich with lowered rents subsidized by the canton for households with an identified income limit amounts to just under 1.3 percent of all municipal apartments, that is, only 2,700 out of a total 210,000 apartments. These apartments are located on municipal properties and in buildings belonging to the housing cooperatives. The apartments are scattered throughout the buildings in which they are located to avoid the formation of the type of islands of disadvantage found in the form of massive social ghettos on the peripheries of European capitals and in ghettos in the USA. Nevertheless, affordable prices also remain a central feature of nonprofit residential con­ struction in Switzerland. The most important factor in this context is cost rent, whereby the rent charged for apartments does not constitute a source of profit on investment. The goal is to create socially mixed residential estates comprising apartments, services, and lively neighborhoods for different target groups: families, single- and two-person households, and larger households made up of different constellations: students, elderly people, couples, shared apartments and tenant communities — in short, living space for the majority of those who do not have the financial means to choose whatever living space they desire on the expensive and limited city housing market. Moreover, the occupancy regulations applied by the commune and most of the cooperative property ­developers — ­as a rule there should be one room more than the number of people making up a household — make an important contribution to the reduction of the kind of living space consumption that contributes significantly to increasing housing costs and urban sprawl. In this way cooperatives also make an important environmental contribution and help save on infrastructure costs. The More than Housing experiment bundles and extends a series of innovations that were introduced to Swiss nonprofit residential construction in the 1990s. It is creating not just a new residential estate but a new quarter. And it is doing so not in a privileged city location but in a developing area: its surroundings include large office and commercial buildings, dreary arterial roads, and a waste incinerator. Nevertheless, this is where More than Housing is testing the possibilities of a comprehensive approach to housing construction designed to meet the needs of the future. Here, sustainability is not limited to energy efficiency, environmental protection, or socio-economic aspects. This is not a project that accepts a trade-off between the different pillars of the well-known trinity of

sustainable development, which is often justified in terms of practical constraints. This book is loosely structured around a number of themes: the presentation of the genesis of the project, its goals, strategies, and developmental process; followed by contributions on urban development and architecture, social and cultural issues, and energy and sustainability. The contents reflect the complexity of the objectives involved and of the planning and implementation process. In many cases the authors take a broader perspective that extends beyond Zürich to include relevant developments in the fields of urban development and residential construction, thereby positioning the project in a larger context. As this book approaches publication the inhabitation of the Hunziker Areal is in full swing. The new quarter is coming to life. Just how brightly it will shine as a beacon in the field of forward-thinking residential construction, what aspects prove their worth, what does not work as planned — exploring all this will be the task of the next book.

10 11

1 The Founding of More THAN HOUSING Thomas Borowski

14–16 Zürich: More than Housing Dominique Boudet

17–22

12 13

The Founding of More than Housing

Thomas Borowski

How Will We Live Tomorrow? How will we live tomorrow? This question, which is essential to every housing project yet rarely addressed in practice, was posed in 2007 at the beginning of a developmental process of several years that led to one of Europe’s most groundbreaking residential projects — More than Housing, a cooperatively organized district section comprising thirteen buildings, some 380 living units and space for 1,400 people located in the Hunziker Areal in Leutschenbach, a district on the edge of Zürich. By November 14, 2014, the new residential estate was ready for its occupants. The history of More than Housing began in 2007, when the City of Zürich and its housing cooperatives celebrated the centenary of government support for cooperative housing construction using the slogan “100 years of more than housing.” Within the framework of the festivities an international competition was organized calling for ideas regarding the future of nonprofit residential construction. The competition organizers posed the following questions for prospective entrants: How should current housing stock be developed and what market strategies should be pursued in the future? What contribution could nonprofit housing developers make to the sustainable development of urban districts? This ideas competition was designed to initiate a creative and forward-looking process of thinking and action, remembers Peter Schmid, who, as president of Wohnbaugenossenschaften Zürich (formerly SVW Zürich), Zürich’s association of housing cooperatives, was, together with project leader Andreas Hofer, largely responsible for the competition and its central theme of “How will we live tomorrow?” A Competition for Ideas as a Developmental Catalyst The unusually open nature of the competition — which called not for architectural projects but rather analytical statements about the significance and potential of nonprofit residential construction at the district level, statements about urban life, changing forms of habitation, social diversity, and the role of neighborhood infrastructure — led to a broad range of interdisciplinary submissions. These were judged first by a jury and then in a so-called echo chamber by different building cooperatives, investors, and experts from the fields of architecture and urban development. This evaluation process — which was conducted based on open dialog, a central pillar of the subsequent development of More than Housing— ­ resulted in the selection of eleven pioneering theses that addressed areas ranging from the importance of city housing and its further development to the sustainable use of resources to living on the poverty line. The ideas competition functioned in the participating bodies as a kind of catalyst. The intensive discussions about the future of cooperative building and collective habitation led in December 2007 to the founding of the building cooperative More than Housing, the financing of which involved the participation of 55 Zürich housing cooperatives and the City of Zürich itself. From the outset, the cooperative’s goal was to develop four hectares of disused industrial land in Leutschenbach made available for building by the city administration. Looking back, Peter Schmid sees it as a real stroke of luck that the dynamism engendered within the Zürich building cooperatives by the ideas competition could be used as an opportunity to develop the groundbreaking innovation and learning platform that More than Housing has become and to do so in the Hunziker Areal, which in retrospect seems to have been almost predestined for such a project.

Developing the Project through Dialog As early as the middle of 2008, the Public Works Department of the City of Zürich launched an architectural competition together with More than Hous­ing. From a total of nearly 100 submissions, twenty teams of architects were se­lect­ ed, which, together with six winning teams from the ideas competition, were invited to submit an urban development concept for the Hunziker Areal as well as designs for an individual building. The demands were considerable because More than Housing was looking for “pioneering architectural solutions for a trendsetting residential estate.” The requirements of submissions included: charting a course to the 2,000-watt society, new apartment types, space for people from all generations, and reasonably priced apartments achieved by optimizing the planning and building process. The competition program envisaged the integration of different promising architectural approaches in an overarching urban development concept. The consortium Futurafrosch/Duplex Architekten won the urban development prize and a prize for its individual building. Other prizes for individual buildings were awarded to Müller Sigrist Architekten AG, Architekturbüro Miroslav Šik and Pool Architekten. The teams were then given the task of reworking the project under the leadership of the urban development winner in a cooperative process with the jury and a number of other specialists. According to Peter Schmid, the principles of dialog and openness guiding this process were derived from cooperative living itself; what was innovative here was the extension of these principles across the entire process of developing a large construction project. The dialogic process continued up until the beginning of construction in 2012, producing a result that unified the visions and goals of More than Housing in relation to environmental sustainability and cost-effectiveness in one project. Not only did a residential estate emerge but also a neighborhood section offering multiple uses and urban references: thirteen large, compact building volumes form streets, lanes and squares with a clear center and differentiated exterior spaces that invite use by occupants and other neighborhood residents. Constructed in accordance with the Minergie-P-Eco standard, the buildings can be described as a beacon on the road to the 2,000-watt society and also as one of the best advertisements for cooperative housing, comments Peter Schmid. The variety of technical systems and building materials used promises valuable knowledge, and the cooperative is working on an evaluation and monitoring concept in order to make its experiences and insights accessible to others. Apart from a range of technical innovations, More than Housing used a wide variety of housing typologies (from studio and family apartments to shared and “satellite” apartments) to explore the entire spectrum of possible habitation forms. In combination with spaces for retail outlets and commercial premises, this diversity has led to a highly mixed group of residents in an exciting, lively neighborhood. Peter Schmid is convinced that all in all, as an innovation and learning platform for nonprofit residential construction, the anniversary cooperative More than Housing is on the right track. Other cooperatives can benefit from More than Housing through knowledge transfer, and a platform has been created that is providing important impulses for the district of Leutschenbach. In order to

14 15

ensure that it continues to do so, this platform must also be actively cultivated and further developed in the coming years. As a next step, the residents are invited to energize the location with their own ideas. If this succeeds, then for Peter Schmid the answer to the initial question “How will we live tomorrow?” will be obvious: “We will have a rich, collaborative form of everyday life based in densely settled, mixed neighborhoods in which we will help and support each other in difficult phases of life — and all this within the framework of a democratic, cooperative form that has been proving its worth for more than one hundred years.”

Zürich: More than Housing

Dominique Boudet

The Rediscovered Dynamism of Housing Cooperatives In the basement of the Zürich Office of Public Works there is a giant model of the city that takes up almost the entire room. On this impressive relief new buildings appear between the already darkened older buildings as white wooden volumes. The model shows two or three urban renewal areas on disused industrial sites, but more interesting are the many small buildings on the periphery. This white confetti documents the reawakening of an important stakeholder in the Zürich housing sector: housing cooperatives. The density of this housing stock is clearly visible. The buildings are higher than others and contain more apartments, which are in turn bigger than those on the estates they have replaced that dated from the post- and even prewar periods. Some might say this is a typical development, and indeed it is. However, the stakeholders in this case are not financial syndicates or private developers but the same cooperatives that built the new buildings’ predecessors fifty or more years ago. Over the last fifteen years or so, housing cooperatives, which own 40,000 apartments on for the most part only moderately utilized sites, have been developing a new dynamism that is not only affecting social life on the estates but is also influencing and will continue to shape Zürich as an urban and built environment. In view of the significant amount of real estate owned by housing cooperatives, it can be expected that the transformation that began several years ago is set to continue. This explains the optimism expressed by Peter Schmid, president of the umbrella organization Wohnbaugenossenschaften Zürich and of the largest cooperative, ABZ, which manages almost 5,000 dwellings: “We have the best projects, and we have twenty years of development in front of us.” 1 Before look­ing at the mechanisms that led to this change, it is worth recalling how housing cooperatives in Zürich were able to gain such significance.

1 This and the following quotations were taken from talks the author had in French.

More Apartments with Less Money

2 The difference between the ­average rent paid in cooperatives and rent paid to private landlords is 26 percent. Swiss Statistics Office: MietpreisStruktur-Erhebung, 2006. 3 There are exceptions, such as the Zurlinden artisans’ cooperative, whose members are companies operating in the building sector and whose tenants are not co-owners and do not have to pay for shares.

16 17

As was the case in many industrial cities in northern Europe, housing cooperatives emerged in Zürich at the beginning of the twentieth century in response to a housing shortage and a lack of affordable accommodation for ­working ­people. The model for establishing a housing cooperative is a simple one: ­several ­people join together and found a cooperative of which they become shareholders. The cooperative builds housing and rents it to its members at cost. Since no profits are generated and the value of land is not increased with a view to resale, the difference between cooperative rents and rents on the open ­market increases significantly over time.2 Originally, membership of such h ­ ousing cooperatives was based on affiliation with a profession, industrial sector, or ­religion. Today such distinctions have all but disappeared; now anyone can be a member of any cooperative. However, it remains the case that anyone renting housing in a cooperative becomes a co-owner and must acquire shares in the cooperative.3 Most housing cooperatives base the amount of so-called obligatory equity on the cost and size of the apartment concerned and use the capital acquired for financing.

Kraftwerk1 Heizenholz 2012

Remodeling and extension of a ­children‘s home from the early 1970s, Adrian ­Streich Architekten, Zürich, occupation 2012

Kalkbreite 2014

Residential and commercial building above a tram depot at an inner city location, Müller Sigrist Architekten, Zürich, occupation 2014

Kraftwerk1 Hardturmstrasse 2001

Kalkbreite 2014

The first large new building project undertaken by the young cooperative movement in the industrial quarter, Stücheli Architekten with Bünzli Courvoisier Architekten, Zürich, occupation 2001

18 19

Two particular factors explain why housing cooperatives assumed such significance in Zürich: the industrial geography of the city and municipal policy. In the first phase of industrialization, factories and workers’ housing were located close by one another in the city’s inner suburbs; one example is the district of Aussersihl, which lies to the west of Zürich’s main railway station. However, rapid industrial development soon dissolved the close connection between domicile and place of work. The spatial needs of large industrial complexes forced workers to relocate increasingly further out into areas in the south, west, and north of the city that were not incorporated until 1934. This movement of people was only made possible by the extension of the tram network. From 1907 onward — and above all during the years between the two World Wars — Zürich’s housing cooperatives were provided with financial support by the municipal and later also the federal governments. Although the City of Zürich had built housing estates at an early stage, from the 1920s onward it preferred to sell municipal land to cooperatives. Following World War II, this preference continued to be manifested in the awarding of building rights. This led to the development of numerous residential estates on the edge of the city center — in the early years based on the model of the “garden city” — in which buildings seldom of more than three or four stories are separated by generous stretches of greenery. Today Zürich, with 40,000 cooperatively managed apartments, has the most housing-cooperative dwellings of all cities in Switzerland, where the total number of such dwellings numbers 140,000.4 In Zürich some 25 percent of apartments are nonprofit; they belong to the municipality, foundations, and, for the most part, cooperatives. In a referendum conducted in 2011, city residents voted to increase this proportion to a third by 2025. In order to achieve this goal, the city will have to provide more plots — which are, however, becoming increasingly rare.

4 Figures from the Zürich regional association of the Swiss federation of housing cooperatives.

A Renaissance

5 Figures from CSL Immobilien AG, CSLWohnmarktbericht 2015 (2014). 6 Chief editor of the journal werk, bauen & wohnen; coauthor of the book Mehr als Wohnen: Gemeinnütziger Wohnungsbau in Zürich. 1907-2007 Bauten und Siedlungen, ed. Stadt Zürich (Zürich: gta Verlag, 2007).

In a city in which for the majority of people access to living space is based on a rental relationship (as in Switzerland as a whole), it is obvious why housing cooperatives play such an important role in Zürich. (Only around 37 percent of Swiss own their homes; in the City of Zürich home ownership is limited to just under 9 percent of the population).5 Daniel Kurz, an expert on housing cooperatives, summarizes the situation as follows: “In Zürich there are three forms of access to living space: purchasing one’s own home, renting dwellings on the open market, and renting a dwelling within a housing cooperative.”6 But what do the majority of these dwellings actually look like? Buildings dating from before and immediately after World War II often offer only very small living spaces (70— 80 square meters in a 4.5-room apartment, compared to 100— 110 square meters in an apartment built to currently accepted standards); the level of comfort offered by these older buildings is modest (small elevators, small bal­conies), and in many cases they no longer meet Swiss environmental standards (for example, with regard to energy consumption and noise control), which are becoming more comprehensive all the time. The real capital, the asset owned by housing cooperatives, is the land these older buildings stand on. Here, there are many possibilities for the process of renewal that has already begun. However, this process requires mobilization of institutions that have grown old with their residents and played, as it were, only a muted role in concert with the Zürich social housing system. It has been the

interaction of three factors emerging at the same time — a housing shortage, the actions of young, determined citizens, and a new dynamism in the field of muni­cipal policy — that has roused the housing cooperatives from their long slumber. In only a few years they have again become stakeholders in a process of renewal in an urban-developmental as well as a constructional and social respect. “Until 1996,” says Peter Schmid, “the housing cooperatives simply trundled along. But within a period of ten years, they have transformed themselves into active partners in the process of urban development.” From Radical Actions to Large-Scale Building In the 1990s only a few hundred apartments were built each year. Although this was a consequence of a severe real estate crisis on the open market, housing cooperatives also invested very little in new building. Between 1975 and 2000 — that is, practically over a whole generation — they almost exclusively focused on renovating their existing housing stock. The construction of additional buildings was still not a theme that attracted genuine interest. It was only developments on industrial sites that had become vacant, an international discernible sense of “urban renaissance,” and activities on the young cooper­ ative scene that brought the housing question and the role of cooperatives back onto the political agenda. There was obviously a need for urgent action, as the housing shortage and high rents began forcing more and more families out of the city into more affordable and, in planning terms, more dynamic municipalities. The City of Zürich faced not only social destabilization but also a drastic loss of taxation revenue. In response, the city launched a housing construction initiative under the slogan “10,000 homes in ten years.” “That might sound modest, but following the stagnation of the 1980s and 1990s this program had a huge effect. It changed many people’s attitudes. Cooperative and private investors suddenly realized that their projects were welcome,” points out Daniel Kurz. The city mobilized its reserves of building land and issued building rights for them. Quality through ArchitecturAL Competitions

7 Dichter. Eine Dokumentation der baulichen Veränderung in Zürich —  30 Beispiele, ed. Stadt Zürich (Zürich: Amt für Städtebau, 2012).

20 21

The goal was clear: Families needed to be persuaded to stay in the city by providing them with appropriate housing at affordable rents. The city government stipulated that construction projects on land it made available should be based on architecture competitions. “Our goal was not maximum density but high-quality buildings, and competitions were the surest means of achieving this,” explains Ursula Müller, deputy director of the Office of Public Works. The cooperatives, which over time recognized that this process increased the quality of offerings, began to make use of this approach increasingly often, commissioning suitable urban planning offices to organize competitions in cases where the land in question was cooperative property. After some initial wrong turns — a number of cooperatives built apartments that were too large and ex­pensive — this approach was adopted on an increasingly wider scale. In view of the several dozen projects that have been completed in the interim, the positive aspects of this change are clear. Despite densification, it has been possible to preserve Zürich’s structural openness. One can traverse the city from north to south all the while moving through residential complexes. In 2012 the city published a study 7 that looked at density development with reference to thirty

examples, of which twenty-five have been built by cooperatives. While density has increased, it remains measured. On average, the ratio of floor area to the size of building plots has risen from 0.4:0.8 to 1.0:1.5. Threefold Cesura Despite the architectural simplicity that has been maintained in terms of form and materials, behind it is a threefold cesura. On the one hand, it is characterized by a break with the banal row arrangements of buildings in the Siedlungen, or estates, dating from the postwar period. Today’s estates feature more inventive layouts which avoid the placement of structures directly opposite one another; create a variety of perspectives and locations; and emphasize their collective green areas. On the other hand, the canonical form of the “Swiss Box” has been left behind and ever more frequently replaced by less rigid forms, which are the result of a search for a new, more flowing division of space with more open ground plans. The standard typology envisions a large open space that combines the living room and kitchen with individual, private rooms opening onto the collective space. “Putting the kitchen in the living room was a ten-year struggle,” comments architect Christian Sumi. Newer projects such as the Heizenholz estate built by Kraftwerk1, Kalkbreite and the project in the Hunziker Areal built by the More than Housing cooperative are also evidence of the renewed role of cooperatives as initiators of new residential forms. In these projects new typologies are being tried out, such as the currently much discussed cluster apartment, a hybrid form that combines the small apartment and the shared household: several individuals or couples each live in one or two rooms (usually equipped with a kitchenette and a small bathroom) but collectively use a large living/cooking/eating area and in some cases a guest room. “The Swiss, who have a long tradition of doing things together —  as proved by the housing-cooperative system — are well suited to this kind of coexistence. The historical shortage of housing means that they became accustomed to shared households at a very early stage,” explains Andreas Hofer. Cautious densification is in many respects remarkable but it has clear limitations. Most obviously, it is lacking in terms of the urban dimension. All these estates show that from a social point of view housing cooperatives are very circumspect in their approach. As a result, their social intermix is satisfactory but their functional intermix is inadequate. Where are the businesses, the local service providers, the cultural facilities, and the cafés that would make these residential estates into genuine urban quarters? The Kalkbreite and More than Housing projects can serve as prototypes in this respect. In the case of the large-scale project built by More than Housing, the goal of building a quarter rather than an estate has been a key element from the beginning. Here we are already seeing a further phase in the development of cooperatives. In the case of large estates containing several hundred apartments, the cooperatives are assuming de facto responsibility for urban development. The densification and transformation of the city’s housing stock offers an opportunity to develop quarters with diverse populations, a high residential quality and a rich everyday life. In this way, social and urban-developmental innovation can be linked together anew.

2 Building onto the City Angelus Eisinger

28–33 Collective Forms of Living Daniel Kurz

34–39 Discussion: Architecture “It’s really terrific what became possible here!” Futurafrosch, Duplex, Pool, ­­­­Miroslav Šik, Müller Sigrist Moderation: Axel Simon

40–46 Discussion: Teaching Building “The Architects did Not Play the Key Role Here” Dietmar Eberle (ETHZ) Andreas Hofer (maw) Claudia Schwalfenberg (SIA) Moderation: Axel Simon

47–52 More than Open Space Sabine Wolf

53–58 Plans

62–104 Discussion: Participation Participation generates ­identification Jürg Altwegg, Claudia Thiesen, Corinna Heye, Monika Sprecher Moderation: Margrit Hugentobler

105–110 26 27

Building onto the City

Angelus Eisinger

Current Tendencies in Urban Development Over the last years, an extraordinary initiative by Zürich building cooperatives has led to the emergence of More than Housing, an experimental urban element on the Hunziker Areal. Its developers confronted the problems of urban coexistence against the background of an urgent rethink of our energy and resource use. What is the relevance of this development for current debates and ­practices in the field of town planning? How is the task of shaping urban development via town planning being dealt with here? The following essay pursues these questions by focusing, in the first place, on current Swiss and European developments. The central themes I will be addressing are site development and sustainable neighborhood transformation, that is, aspects that have a direct relevance to the More than Housing initiative.1 1 Further important focuses of the current debate are: (1) the conception of functional metropolitan areas (for example, in Paris with the Boulevard périphérique/ central and large-scale landscape concepts such as in Montpellier, Twente, and Milan); (2) strategic planning on the level of entire cities (for example, the structural plan of Antwerp and the London Plan); (3) the ongoing renaissance of public space (outstanding examples of which can be seen along the banks of the Garonne in Bordeaux and in Greater Copenhagen); and (4) the discussion currently being initiated around the idea of building urban quarters rather than housing estates.

Town Planning in Europe Today: Between Developmental Dreams and Fears of Stagnation Historians of town and urban planning have been following the current town planning discussion in Switzerland with a certain sense of amazement. Recent years have seen the news and features pages of newspapers filled with articles on town planning, the tone of which borders on euphoric, and cultural magazines and television shows embracing urban developmental themes. It is a celebration of urban development that is almost unprecedented in Switzerland’s history, and it has been accompanied by a massive emphasis on town planning in built reality. A wander over the Swiss Plateau between Lake Constance and Lake Geneva these days reveals imposing crane systems everywhere and large project signs featuring professionally rendered illustrations of compact development models and generously dimensioned open spaces that are witness to the intensity with which land development is rediscovering urban typologies. Even the skepticism toward large-scale projects that has shaped Swiss town planning for more than a hundred years seems to be declining. Current remodeling and new building projects in Switzerland are characterized above all by a plot-based urbanism involving the conversion of industrial sites and the transformation of wasteland. The Richti Areal in Wallisellen and the Rapid Areal in Dietikon are just as exemplary in this respect as the Sulzerareal in Winterthur and the developments in the Lorzenebene outside Zug. We encounter similar conceptual focuses in many major European cities, albeit often on different scales in terms of the sites being transformed. What is evident from London to Dublin to Milan, from Copenhagen to Marseille and Madrid, is that within this town planning model only small parts of the respective cities are built using this approach. The alliances between architecture, town planning, and real estate development that are forming to realize such area developments raise a number of fundamental questions regarding a sustainable new orientation of the cities concerned. Can these types of developments have broader effects on the demands for sustainability, energy efficiency, and new forms of mobility in these cities, or do they merely create islands of sustainability? What happens with this model when the economic preconditions for its implementation are lacking, as is the case today in large parts of Europe and many urban quarters? Does this mean that sustainable urban development is robbed of its possibilities?

Since the 1990s, Berlin has become an experimental field for alternative trajectories of urban development — and it has done so, so to speak, amid an accelerating rhythm of the crises that gripped the German capital soon after 1995 and have continued to burden it ever since. Today Berlin is characterized by a simultaneous nonsimultaneity of boom and stagnation. On the one hand, the city boasts impressive townhouses and individual, grandiose projects such as David Chipperfield’s stunning reinterpretation of the Neues Museum; on the other, it is a city characterized by dramatic vacancy rates, the unfinished results of ambitious large-scale building plans, and closures of public facilities such as swimming pools and libraries for financial reasons. Thus, in Berlin today we find two discursive fronts colliding with one another against their corresponding urban-developmental backdrops. In the immediate vicinity of districts in which — since the launch of the Inner City Development Plan in the early 1990s — there has been a return by town planners to classical spatial and structural qualities in terms of density, intermixture, and public space, pulsating urban phenomena have emerged designed by urban pioneers employing alternative spatial tactics, ranging from the campaigns aimed at preserving the Palace of the Republic and the myriad bars and recreational facilities on the River Spree to the transformation of Tempelhof Airport and the creation of the Princesses’ Gardens in the district of Kreuzberg. Hamburg: Test Case for Opposite Poles of Town Planning When we turn our gaze from the current developmental boom in Switzerland to town planning dynamics in other European cities, we find a debate around sustainability covering a scope defined by the two poles of, on the one hand, large, intricately composed concepts of structural-spatial design and, on the other, the vitality of bottom-up processes. In this context, Hamburg has provided an interesting stage in recent years on which the issues regarding the city of the future, its fundamental strategies and its stakeholders, have been discussed from both these points of view. Apart from the ongoing and ambitious transformation of the former harbor area in the immediate vicinity of the inner city into the new district of HafenCity, it has been above all the International Building Exhibition (IBA) in Wilhelmsburg that has explicitly addressed the thematic context of current and future city formation. In a certain sense, the HafenCity project has brought Berlin’s Inner City Development Plan to the River Elbe. The idea of a compact European city is expressed here in an opulent matrix of spacious open squares and generously proportioned boulevards combined with dense, mixed urban quarters characterized by solid structures. The conversion of the former harbor area has been based on the same principle of tabula rasa that informed town planning during large parts of the twentieth century, implementing its overarching concept on surfaces cleared of all resistances and barriers to its realization. Based on this principle, planning has addressed different fundamental challenges presented by the city of the future by involving proven experts in a groundbreaking ­manner. This pertains to various fields, such as high ecological and pioneering energy stands, showcase flood-protection projects, massive design interventions in public space, endeavors to lend vitality to ground-floor areas, and the promotion of neighborhood networks.

28 29

The emphases of the International Building Exhibition in Wilhelmsburg could not be more different than those characterizing the approach to HafenCity. The fundamental idea behind the IBA was to transform the problem-ridden district by utilizing existing structures and locally available material, social, and cultural resources. Wilhelmsburg exhibits structural features that are encountered in many urban spaces in need of transformation. The IBA confronted these often unpleasant realities head-on, focusing on material and nonmaterial problems that need to be monitored constantly in the construction of the urban quarters of the future. It considered the ways in which living space had been shaped and limited by large infrastructural components such as harbor facilities, railways, and autobahns and by contaminated and neglected sites. It also made clear that the practical implementation of the project’s slogan, “Transformation of Urban, Residential, and Living Space,” can and must include the development of appropriate forms of participation by locally based groups. With the Intercultural Planning Workshop, it initiated a project that approached the upcoming remodeling of this quarter, which dates from the 1930s, together with a multicultural and in part socially precarious neighborhood. The involvement of residents was central here. Face-to-face discussions were conducted around the concept of home, which helped generate the familiarity required to become acquainted with residents’ desires regarding the remodeling project. Those affected were able to contribute their points of view and work with photos and models of new apartment layouts and concepts for open spaces. The results were collected in a catalogue of recommendations, which in turn played a role in the program devised for the subsequent design-concept competition. Thus, novel specifications validated by locally existing needs were generated for this part of Wilhelmsburg, and details of sustainable urban development were fine-tuned that are usually barely taken into consideration at all. The key concepts characterizing the two poles of the current town-planning debate around the developments in Hamburg can be related to the project on the Hunziker Areal in Zürich in many respects. The Zürich project exhibits parallels with HafenCity in the sense that both involve an area development built onto a framework of buildings and open spaces that is helping to clarify the fundamental challenges facing current and future urban development by drawing on expert input. In both cases the basic framework has not only allowed a high degree of variation in the architecture involved but also has contributed to the creation of striking public spaces, the practical test of which as sites of identity formation and integration, particularly in relation to the surrounding quarters, still lies before them. Parallels can also be observed between the intensive preparatory and monitoring processes characterizing the Hunziker Areal development and the key Wilhelmsburg projects, which have made the residents themselves into developers of the basic concept. Both the Wilhelmsburg and the North Zürich projects have drawn on the concept of an area development conceived as spatial and programmatically open. Both are envisioned as “acupunctures,” which have been carefully tuned to their respective spatial and ­social contexts and which are not only oriented inward but also generate impulses affecting their surroundings. The concept of acupuncture is central here in the sense of a creative, designed space that becomes a fulcrum of the transformation of its wider surroundings.

These developments bring into focus a task that is set to become increasingly central to the establishment of viable approaches to town planning if sustainability is not to be confined merely to those sites that are being specifically developed. The Third Way: Symbioses of Urban Development and Town Planning Design-oriented approaches and spatial tactics that displace design questions both exhibit considerable weaknesses when it comes to the establishment of sustainable methods of urban-quarter transformation that aim to do justice to all aspects involved. If the architecturally based concentration of area developments is confined to the planning perimeter, bottom-up processes all too often elude these fundamental aspects of design, spatial composition, and constructional programming. Over recent years we have been seeing increasing evidence of practices that aim to have a lasting impact on urban development by way of town-planning strategies that link the design competencies of architects and planners with forms of integration and participation. I will briefly outline this third way, which is based on an alliance between town planning and sustainable urban development, using three examples before finally considering its relevance in the case of the Hunziker Areal. Top-down planning and bottom-up approaches are often seen as opposites in debates about town planning. Both have their indisputable merits but both lack the advantages of the other. However, the transformation of the Île de Nantes over the last ten years illustrates how the overall strategic dimension and work coming from and with local contexts need not exclude one another and can indeed be mutually fruitful. Fifteen hundred people live over an area of 337 hectares on this island located on the lower section of the Seine. Abandoned harbor areas, disused industrial and commercial sites, and areas used for residential and commercial purposes form a colorful patchwork here. In order to provide what has over time become a fragment with a stable structure again, the architect Alexandre Chemetoff and his team developed a planning concept that systematically dovetailed the island as a whole with local initiatives and their constructional changes. The vision of the master plan is being pursued via the plan guide while at the same time architectural projects are being launched, concretized, and implemented on the level of areas and plots. Every three months the plan guide is adjusted in accordance with the status of projects, providing local projects with an adapted, overall, and long-term orientation. At the same time, this approach ensures that the overall spatial concept is never in danger of becoming an abstract set of precepts that contradicts concrete conditions on the ground. Using this dovetailing principle of reciprocal adaptation processes also enables planners in Nantes to integrate local participants with their specific knowledge and needs into the transformation of the island at an early stage and in a concrete way. As a result, local, meticulously supported acupunctures are generated which simultaneously contribute to the establishment of an integral overall coherence.

30 31

Two examples from Antwerp and Rotterdam show how engagement by civil society in issues relating to quarter development using contemporary ­design and based on the careful use of scarce resources can function. The Rotterdam project Klushuizen (Bricolage Buildings) was initiated in response to the large number of deteriorating buildings standing empty in different problem-ridden parts of the city. Between 2003 and 2010, the city of Rotterdam purchased 169 old buildings in need of renovation. It soon became evident that renovating them would be extremely expensive, with the result that they would have to be put back on the market at unrealistic prices. It was this deadlock that gave birth to Klushuizen. The central idea of this project is to sell unrenovated buildings cheaply to interested parties who then renovate them on the condition that they themselves use these buildings for the following three years. The purchase of a building is only possible when it can be shown that sufficient but not yet allocated capital is available. In addition, in order to acquire the property, the purchaser must develop a remodeling concept together with architects appointed by the city. The purchase and remodeling only become legally binding once an appropriate implementation plan has been presented. The approach devised by Klushuizen provides new options for the development of urban quarters that can also be deployed in cases where public liquidity is lacking and private interested parties are faced with financial limitations that shut them out of the real estate market. In the process, Klushuizen is stimulating independent initiatives as fundamental resources of quarter development and identity formation. These ambitions link the program with the goal of creating new architectural quality and thereby impulses for further initiatives. Requirements such as the minimum duration of occupancy increase the readiness to integrate into the local environment over the long term, which benefits on an enduring basis not only from new residents and renovated buildings but also the clear signal that efforts are under way to counter the decline of the quarter concerned. This thematic alliance enables the Bricolage Buildings to become local acupunctures. Antwerp is taking a similar approach to the stabilization of development in structurally weak areas while also more decisively embracing innovative architectural concepts as a tool for stimulating quarter development. To this end, the city founded Vespa AG in 2003 as a municipal real estate management and development enterprise. Vespa has become a fulcrum of quarter development for situations in which the real estate market is no longer prepared to intervene. Its operations involve the remodeling of carefully selected buildings, usually located in areas where the city administration is also implementing other strategic planning. The individual remodeling projects are carried out by a pool of ten architects, each of whom is engaged for four years to completely rethink the design of Vespa buildings and to renovate and remodel them. This strategy consciously aims to support young architects designing experimental building and layout forms. The goal is thus to achieve sustainable renewal by way of high-quality and innovative architecture. The transformed buildings are subsequently sold at prices comparable with those charged elsewhere in the quarter. Any differences between remodeling and renovation costs and the proceeds of sales are covered by city development funds. The minimum owner-use period of five years ensures that social capital for the development of the quarter is sustainably increased.

What Will Come: Field Experiments Instead of Laboratories How can More than Housing be positioned in relation to these tendencies? It is linked with the three examples described here by the fundamental insight that sustainable urban development can only take place when area developments become acupunctures of their surroundings. As in the case of the approaches in the Netherlands, More than Housing is about the urbanistic and programmatically creative occupation of an empty site. In its interior the Hunziker Areal forms a multifaceted urban laboratory in which new forms of coexistence are being tried out. Many of these experiments are only possible because the relevant environmental conditions can be largely controlled. In the future, interior development will find fewer and fewer areas and interim spaces suitable for such experiments. Instead, more and more field experiments will have to be conducted in surroundings that are already freighted with a prehistory that makes them the focus of a wide range of interests and claims. In the field of town planning these conditions will also apply to the search for adequate scope for the design and spatial organization that are indispensable for sustainable urban development. In this respect, the contributions to the third way discussed here point to new roles for specialists in the fields of architecture and town planning in relation to sustainable quarter development. Such experts can generate and provoke ideas and discussion, because it is professionals in these fields who understand how to overcome the contradictions of development in the urban-spatial concretion. Faced with such challenges, they react not only as translators and mediators but as catalysts of something new. And they are able to do so because they are part of strong alliances.

32 33

Collective Forms of Living

Daniel Kurz

The Yearning for More For the theorists of classical economics, the autonomous individual seeking optimal satisfaction of his or her own interests is the fundamental unit of society. However, this is, at most, only part of the truth. The human being cannot do without community; it is only in exchange with others that we are truly ourselves. Engaging in debate, being perceived, playing a role, finding sympathy — these are all basic needs and having them withdrawn is akin to being imprisoned. Every­ one can cook and do their laundry by themselves, but that which goes beyond everyday life and lends it its luster: sharing happiness and sadness, celebrating, dancing, eating fondue, learning, debating — all these and much more can only take place in community with other people. Community is added value; our lives would be poor without it. Individual, Small Family, Market Economy Things that we find self-evident today such as living alone, living as a couple or within a small family are in fact relatively modern phenomena. It was the development of the market economy, the philosophy of the Enlightenment and, finally, industrialization that first created the preconditions for the modern individual and the small family. The monetization of goods and services in the market economy emancipated the individual subject in terms of his spending power from dependence on the give and take of community life. The anonymous monetary transactions that replaced relationships based on personal exchange meant that subjects become less shackled to one another but also less protected. The collapse of relative protection provided by the social network of the community resulted in the “pauperism” that was regarded as a threat during the early phase of industrialization. Luxury Mansion or Garden City?

1 Rudolf Stumberger, Das Projekt Utopia. Geschichte und Gegenwart des Genossenschafts- und Wohnmodells Familistère Godin (Hamburg: VSAVerlag, 2004); and Thierry Paquot, Marc Berdadida, eds., Habiter l’­­utopie. Le Familistère Godin à Guise (Paris: Editions de La Villette, 2004).

The impoverishment of workers as well as the threat to the artisanal middle class demanded alternative models. What remains one of the most impressive examples of communal residential construction was already built during the first high point of industrialization in France. In 1859 the industrialist Jean-Baptiste André Godin commissioned the construction of the Familistère, a palatial complex for himself and his workers featuring glass-covered courtyards and 400 apartments accessed via covered walkways. The complex’s residents were provided with shops, schools, a restaurant and even a swimming pool, and the large courtyards were used for parties and festivities.1 Godin, an adherent of the social-reformist ideas of Charles Fourier, believed in the “association” of company owners and workers. He wanted not only to create affordable living space but also to facilitate a form of coexistence that could contribute to the emancipation and education of his staff and their families. In 1880 Godin transferred ownership of the complex to a cooperative, which existed until 1968. Today the Familistère is a listed French cultural monument. Following extensive renovations, the building’s residential function has now been supplemented by a museum. Despite its long existence the Familistère did not find a direct successor. For some time, the approach to social housing remained dominated by cheap apartment blocks and small single-family houses, which were envisaged as

From top to bottom: Unité d‘Habitation, Marseille Familistère, Guise Spangen residential estate, Rotterdam Unité d‘Habitation, Marseille

From top to bottom: Het nieuwe Huis, Amsterdam Familistère, Guise Alt-Erlaa residential community, Vienna Binz squat, Zürich

34 35

strengthening the family bonds and self-confidence of workers. Even for building cooperatives during the twentieth century, the single-family house remain­ed the ultimate goal, as is evident in the articles of association of the ABZ, Switzerland’s largest building cooperative, and other large cooperatives.2 The family was the linchpin of the housing-cooperative concept, a central aim of which was to give the family unit more room to breathe and above all a larger private sphere than was possible in tenement housing. The ideal of all cooperatives and most of their members was therefore the garden city and, wherever possible, the individual house. This did not exclude communal action, since it was only by forming a group that workers and salaried employees could become credit-worthy building clients, and the green areas of the estates that were built were proudly celebrated as collective works.

2 For example, Dora Staudinger and Otto Streicher, Unser Kampf gegen die Wohnungsnot (Zürich: Genossenschaftsdruckerei, [1919]) (brochure, Sozialarchiv Zürich); see also Daniel Kurz, Die Disziplinierung der Stadt. Moderner Städtebau in Zürich, 1900–1940 (Zürich: gta Verlag, 2008).

Stacked Single-Family Houses Where the building land and financial means for single-family houses were lack­­­ing, there was always the option of stacking apartments and thereby bringing the pri­vate sphere into harmony with the large dimensions of the housing block. In 1922 Le Corbusier made this idea the fundamental concept of his approach to urban development. He conceived the immeuble-villa as a cubic, two-level living unit with a garden-like patio, which, stacked in the thousands, could form free-standing, high-rise apartment buildings. The first example, the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, was built between 1947 und 1952. It is a stacked city with internal corridors (rues intérieures) on every third floor, on which lie the compact maisonette apartments that extend both downward and upward: a two-level, glazed living space with a balcony and laboratory kitchen is connected via an internal stairway with the elongated narrow bedroom level. The rue intérieure on the seventh level is the real center of the building and houses a laundry and shops for everyday needs, a restaurant, and other communal facilities. On the top floor there is a daycare center and a kindergarten with access to outside areas on the roof terrace. Suspended on pilotis, the high-rise slab made of rough, exposed concrete wrote architectural history and its basic principle has often been copied. Examples in Zürich are the Lochergut and Unteraffoltern II estates. Both high-rise estates offer a particular spatial experience in the form of spacious open entrance halls, which serve as meeting points. However, they appear modest in comparison to the Wohnpark Alt-Erlaa in Vienna, which was built in 1985 and designed by the architect Harry Glück working with several partners. Here, all 3,172 apartments have at least one generous balcony, while on the lower floors of the building, which spreads out to form a parabola toward the bottom, the units are even equipped with garden terraces. With its own schools, kindergartens, sports facilities, cinemas, and shopping centers, seven swimming pools on the roof, and its own church, newspaper, and television channel, Alt-Erlaa is a city within the city and, in spite of its size and chunky form, remains one of Vienna’s most popular residential locations.3

3 Recently published: Harry Glück, Wohnbauten, ed. Reinhard Seiss (Salzburg: Müry Salzmann, 2014).

Living without Your Own Kitchen In the nineteenth century, while speculators were building tenement blocks en masse in cities and cooperatives were experimenting with small row houses, others, above all women, were thinking about a form of residential living that would lighten the burden of housework. One result was the “single-kitchen

housing block,” in which a large communal kitchen served all residents and housework was shared or performed by collectively employed service staff. The goal was the rationalization of housework and the liberation of women from repetitive chores. However, the concept of the single-kitchen housing block left behind many more traces in housing literature than in built reality. Various socialist theorists, such as August Bebel and Peter Kropotkin took up the idea, and Lily Braun, Clara Zetkin, and many others wrote books and essays about it.4 This model was originally conceived for workers’ families in which both the husband and wife worked outside the home — yet it was precisely for such people that it proved too expensive. Economizing on the layout and amenities offered by the apartments did not suffice to compensate for the high cost of services. The concrete realizations of this model in Scandinavian, German, and Dutch cities as well as in the US were consequently oriented to a middle-class public. A particularly splendid example is the Nieuwe Huis built in Amsterdam in 1928, an audaciously expressionistic brick building in a central location containing 169 apartments originally intended for wealthy bachelors. The architect, Barend van den Nieuwen Amstel, designed this communal palace for the Samenwerking cooperative. The rooftop terrace, restaurant, and library were open to all residents, and initially a staff of thirty-five offered a full range of services. A socialist counterpart to the Nieuwe Huis can be found in the Narkomfin Building built in Moscow in 1932 and designed by the architects Moisei Ginzburg and Ignaty Milinis: an icon of modern architecture and a revolutionary experiment in community living equipped with a dining hall and numerous communal amenities.5 The principle of small maisonette apartments connected to a covered walkway reveals the influence of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation. Today the building is in a state of deterioration.

4 Ulla Terlinden and Susanne von Oertzen, Die Wohnungsfrage ist Frauensache! Frauenbewegung und Wohnreform 1870–1933 (Berlin: Reimer, 2006); see also the comprehensive entry on the single-kitchen housing block (Einküchenhaus) in de.wikipedia.org.

5 a+t research group, Aurora Fernandez Per, et al., 10 Stories of Collective Housing: Graphical Analysis of Inspiring Masterpieces (Vitoria-Gasteiz: a+t architecture Publishers, 2013).

Communal Living on a Small Scale

6 Inge Beckel, “Wohnen in Gemeinschaft. Unabhängig, praktisch, behaglich,” in Lux Guyer, 1894–1955. Architektin, ed. Sylvia Claus et al. (Zürich: gta Verlag, 2009).

7 Bruno Kammerer, “Café Boy, die Politküche Europas im Sihlfeld,” in Kult Zürich Aussersihl, ed. Silvio Baviera (Zürich: Verlag Um die Ecke, 2010).

36 37

In Zürich there are more modest buildings based on the idea of the “single-­ kitchen housing block.” One example is the Amerikanerhaus (Idastrasse 28) near Idaplatz, which was built in 1916 based on a design for a residential building with a communal kitchen by architect Karl Schwank. The small apartments connected by covered walkways are arranged around an open courtyard. However, the building authorities did not provide approval for apartments without their own kitchens and, as a result, each apartment was equipped with a small kitchen in addition to the dining hall on the ground floor. Today the former dining hall houses a pizzeria. The 1920s saw the first building projects undertaken for a growing group of people who were not catered to by the city’s building cooperatives but could not afford their own apartments: unmarried women. In 1926, Lettenhof, the first “women’s residential colony,” was built in Wipkingen based on a design by the architect Lux Guyer that included a café as well as small apartments.6 In 1932 the “Genossenschaft Proletarische Jugend” (Proletarian Youth Cooperative, now called Bonlieu) and architect Stephan Hüttenmoser constructed the residential block Café Boy (Kochstrasse 2) in the New Building style with forty-four rooms and six apartments, a communal roof terrace, and assembly rooms along with a number of studios and workshops in the basement.7 Since 1997, after twelve years of occupation by squatters, the Karthago complex in Zürich has been run as a cooperative single-kitchen housing block. It has fifty-three residents of different ages, who live in nine shared households and use a collective kitchen.

1968, 1980, and Afterward Following World War II, hundreds of thousands of increasingly similar new apartments were built in Switzerland by a professional housing industry whose focus was on housing for small families and, to a limited degree, small apartments for single people; the concept of communal living no longer seemed in keeping with contemporary sensibilities. Experiments such as the Halen estate, built in Bern by Atelier 5 in the spirit of Le Corbusier, featuring compact small houses arranged around a communal center, remained much-admired exceptions. However, outside the social mainstream, new desires were finding expression. The 1960s saw experimentation with new residential forms, above all by students and artists, who found cheap accommodation in the labyrinthine buildings of the old town and the unpopular tenements built for workers in the nineteenth century. The tall, equally proportioned rooms and large kitchens provided ideal settings for shared households. In the context of the youth rebellion of 1968, such shared living arrangements were invested with a new sociopolitical significance. Communes came to be understood as the germ cells of a socialist society in which life took place within the collective. Increasingly, squatters “liberated” cheap living space as part of the anticapitalist struggle. The Zürich cooperative WOGENO was founded in 1976 in order to save buildings from demolition or expensive remodeling projects and pass them on to self-­ managed housing communities. From the late 1970s onward, communal estates made up of small, individual units, often wooden row houses with a central wood-chip heating system and differentiated private and collective exterior spaces8, were built well outside cities on cheap land. However, the current flourishing of communal residential forms in cities such as Zürich, Geneva, and Basel has its direct roots in the second youth movement of the 1980s, which was accompanied by a far larger, more influential, and internationally networked squatter movement: the Kraaker in Amsterdam, the Squatteurs in Genf, the Instandbesetzer in Berlin and the Hausbesetzer in Zürich were part of a Europe-wide movement struggling for cultural free spaces whose members shared experiences and political demands. The issue was no longer “revolution” but self-determination, cultural expression, and islands of new, ecologically oriented ways of living. The critique of power and established structures gave rise to comprehensive forms of democracy that could also function in large groups. This movement produced numerous new cooperatives in these cities, for example, Codha and CIGUE in Geneva and Dreieck, Karthago and Kraftwerk1 in Zürich . Since then Zürich , along with Vienna, has come to be identified as the city with the biggest and most ambitious projects devoted to participative and communal living in Europe and even the world (see the essay in this volume by Dominique Boudet, p. 17). Why Now? And Why in Zürich ? In post-industrial modernity, the subject moves between isolation in involuntary autonomy and dependence on immensely complex and unsettling global developments. While the monetization of every conceivable human relationship may make the individual independent, it also makes contexts and values relative. The existential meaning nourished by one’s own ego or material success has only a limited efficacy.

Perhaps these are reasons for the increase over the last years of the number ­ of people seeking ways of living that can counteract an unbridled, globalized market economy with a greater degree of connectedness. It is only in this way that we can explain why residential models regarded by real estate professionals as hopeless utopias are today being realized and accepted on a large scale. The fact that this is the case in a wealthy and rather conservative city like Zürich has many reasons. One local particularity in the 1990s was the unexpected collaboration between urban utopians, traditional building cooperatives and the real estate industry on projects such as the first estate built by the coop­ erative Kraftwerk1 on Hardturmstrasse, a project that required all participants to venture into previously taboo territory and revise their notions of “the enemy”. This development was bolstered by the fact that the real estate crisis of the 1990s created certain material preconditions in the form of unused and commercially unviable industrial land. Lengthy periods of squatting in large estates such as Bäcki and Wohlgroth and later Binz and Labitzki generated utopian models of new residential forms, which were provided with a powerful theoretical underpinning by the writer P.M. and the think tank INURA. The experiences over many years shared and passed on by stakeholders ultimately facilitated the successful realization of large projects such as Kalkbreite and More than Housing. A fundamental contribution was also made by the unusual openness of political authorities and effective instruments for financing residential construction. The fact that Zürich largely lacks the kind of small construction groups working on a moderate scale and oriented to privately owned properties that are typical of southern Germany, Berlin, and Hamburg has to do with Switzerland’s overheated land market. Perhaps the enormous energy being invested today in large and ambitious projects such as More than Housing would have been div­id­ed up among smaller projects, if the possibility of realizing them had exist­ed. Prevailing conditions, however, have now made Zürich along with Vienna an international center for new communal forms of living and working.

38 39

Discussion: Architecture “It’s really terrific what became possible here!” Text and moderation

Axel Simon AS Participants

Kornelia Gysel KG Anne Kaestle AK Pascal Müller PM Miroslav Šik MS Mischa Spoerri MSP

Absent Townscapes, Dancing Houses, and Rules with Freedom: The Architects of the Hunziker Areal in Conversation

AS Seated at the table is an illustrious group: the team that won the urban planning project competition (Futurafrosch and Duplex), so to speak as a reward for their ranking, is joined by the additional three practices that were responsible for the individual buildings (Müller Sigrist, Pool, Miroslav Šik). Would the master planners have preferred a team with a more homogeneous orientation? AK This brings us to the heart of the project: the balance between diversity and unity. A project benefits when it develops a unified identity, but also leaves room for idiosyncrasy. In fact, our urbanistic rules of the game allowed considerable space for many different styles, and despite this, we were able to generate commonalities with the group. We were also fortunate in that all of us got on well together. KG Conceptually, our master plan was designed in this way from the beginning. During the competition, we didn’t know whether one, two, or five teams would be chosen, but because it was a question of allowing a new piece of city to emerge, the fact that we were not able to choose our coplanners freely was also an opportunity. Suddenly, we found ourselves in a circle that allowed us to pursue our discussion with enthusiasm.

Dialog AS After the competition, you were all gathered around a table, and had to speak with one another. AK

The so-called dialog phase had to be invented, because our urbanistic typology had nothing to do with those of the others. They weren’t able to simply resort to their standard repertoire of residential types. The bulky blocks were our generators of diversity.

KG The dialog phase lasted somewhat longer than six months. In five workshops, we honed themes, always through an interplay between architectonic considerations and urban planning. As an urban planning team, we attempted to be a half-step ahead; as architects, we were on the move together with our colleagues. Then, we summarized the results of the workshops in six

Miroslav Šik (left) Mischa Spörri, Pool Architekten (right)

Axel Simon (left) Anne Kaestle, Duplex Architekten (right)

Kornelia Gysel, Futurafrosch (above) Pascal Müller, Müller Sigrist Architekten (below)

40 41

rules, which we published in the booklet Häuser im Dialog (Buildings in Dialog). AS The youngest team member played a leading role. How was that experience? AK It

was important to us to avoid simply establishing a watertight system of rules, to determine which trash can could sit in front of which doorway. We attempted to moderate the design process, one based on a common declaration of intent. It was meant to grow from below rather than being imposed from above.

AS And for those at the table with the most experience: What was it like to be directed by four architects (three women and one man) who are young enough to be your students? MS For

me, what counted was architectonic authority. Their urban planning was better. They planned a block perimeter system with side streets and plazas; their buildings are simultaneously blocks and points. That was something new, something I was eager to accept. A fantastic experiment. AS In terms of urban planning, the other two practices developed something completely different. Was it difficult to get away from that and to become receptive to this very different solution, even contribute to shaping it? MSP We choked a bit when we first saw the results. But then we noticed that it had its own virtues, to work with such bulky buildings. It was incredibly professional, I think, the way the urban planning team organized, moderated, and managed everything. PM In

the beginning, we too found these di­mensions extraordinary: 23 by 27 meters! Then we attempted to push the limits of the volumes rather than introducing external projections and offsets. We found it stimulating that we had to organize this extreme type. MS The specifications referred to a “subtractive principle” via the two ground-floor levels, or am I mistaken? AK Yes,

in connection with this subtractive principle, we spoke of a “responding density.” We

wanted the buildings to react to one another. As in a dance: to yield, to generate pressure and counterpressure, relaxation. MS I

don’t see that everywhere.

In retrospect, there are definitely build­­ ings I would have wanted to discuss. But it is precisely these differences I find interesting. We are separated by a half-generation, and approach tasks differently. The excitement is definitely found in the extremes. Our attempt to come to terms with all of this led to fascinating typologies. AK

Townscapes AS Differently from other planning strategies, your plan conveys no concrete townscape. AK

There is a trend to take a familiar image of the city, for example the Berlin block, and place it somewhere on the periphery of Zürich. We didn’t want to transplant a preexisting model to the Hunziker Areal. We were instead interested in extracting and interspersing the qualities of these townscapes.

KG At

the start of the design process, we con­sidered what kind of urban spaces we wanted to make available to the succeeding architects for their buildings. In a later workshop conducted together with them, we attempted to characterize the open spaces: what can they do? How do they function? At which times of day are they most lively? We defined the character of the place via its external spaces. AK With regard to the dimensions of plazas and streets, we were oriented toward familiar ­ entury, prototypes: the city of the late nineteenth c or of the Middle Ages. AS You conveyed images of spaces, not images of buildings? KG Precisely. The authorship of the individual architects was important to us. We didn’t want to delegate responsibility for the buildings to a master plan; instead, we developed a system that allowed space for freedom, but also involved responsibility. We tried to speak about the

qualities that were to emerge, and not about precise dimensions. AS Each architectural practice was assigned two adjacent buildings and a third that was set at the other end of the area. Two practices conceived three fully dissimilar buildings. Did they fail to grasp the concept?

regarded as desirable as an experience for the cooperative. We drew stimulus from the idea of taking things another step in constructive terms. AS How did you coordinate the way the buildings harmonized with one another, ­responded to one another — referred to as “dancing”?

KG The idea of giving each practice a pair of twins and a sibling — these were the terms we used — was also related to the fact that to begin with, we had to invent the dialog process as the basis for our collaboration. We knew that an urban district could emerge only if it was not allowed to fragment into the subsections of the various architectural practices. The twins, which were to stand very close to one another, were intended to insure a minimum of interchange. The third building, located somewhere else in the area, was intended to circumvent the attitude “the rest doesn’t concern me.”

MS Each facade articulation remained in play for a very long time. With some buildings, a few of us remained occupied with them right up to the end, while others danced to a different tune. I would’ve expected you to have been more consistent.

AK We

AK We

didn’t want to publish a booklet of rules, but instead to cultivate a culture of dialog. During a dialog, each interprets what is said differently. It’s in the nature of things, and it’s perfectly normal. With the twins, we were interested not in the greatest possible similarity, but instead in the possibility of allowing control of the interspace. With the other neighbors, this is possible only halfway.

AS Is the dissimilarity of the twins designed by Müller Sigrist, which actually form the gateway to the plaza, a critique of urban planning?

AK We

repeatedly hung all of the facade views alongside one another and discussed them. In the beginning, we had the feeling it would be extremely homogeneous, almost boring. It seem­ed to us that a bit more ought to be going on. That was deceptive, as I have learned since.

would gladly have done so, but we no longer had any mandate.

MS I didn’t know that. When we designed together on the white cardboard model, the requirements for the concept were stronger. The base delimited the volumes; above this, the building was set back to some extent. Later, the generally binding character of the requirements vanished, and the architecture of the individual buildings drifted apart markedly. More than I would have liked. AK Such

PM No,

the residential mix is diverse. Actually, I don’t find our three buildings to be so disparate. We adhered strictly to the subdivision of the facade into base, shaft, and terminus, as prescribed initially. We would have preferred more freedom.

AS The three buildings by Pool Architekten carry difference to extremes: each is constructed in a different way: one in insulating concrete, one in wood, and a third in masonry. Was constructive experimentation more important to you than the coherence of the quarter as a whole? MSP No, by no means. Within the urban planning rules, constructive experimentation was

42 43

questions are posed afterwards: Should things have been tackled differently? Earlier or for a longer time? Or should one have battled more strongly for the mandate?

AS Miroslav Šik, do you believe the urban planning rules should have been stricter in order to achieve a stronger urban image? MS Yes, for me, some individual buildings, especially to the north and east of the main plaza, break ranks, are shaped by the architecture into solitaires, into something nonurban. We see a successful unity within diversity, by contrast, along the western and southern edges of the main plaza. Fortunately, the town planning was strongly structured spatially and formally, and

as a consequence, a number of idiosyncratic pieces of architecture could be integrated to some extent. I’m waiting for the trees, they should provide additional qualities. With the architecture, things moved initially in the direction of the “Paris model,” that is, corresponding base and upper edge. But then, that didn’t go any further.

AS How is the experimental character of these buildings mirrored in their appearance?

KG Regarding the overall arrangement, we had hoped for more interaction, but also for more freedom, for example concerning relations of height and the variability of the program within the buildings. Here, we encountered limits.

AS

AK Our

cluster typology displays itself outwardly in a reserved way. There are urban-style, vertical windows for the small, private units, and the extensive glazing of the common rooms. The content is then deliberately recognizable only at second glance?

AK Precisely.

The expression is relatively calm.

KG One

Experimentation AS Did you consider prescribing a specific material? AK We

discussed that.

some point, the client requested that all of the architectural teams examine various construction types and materials with an eye toward sustainable building.

of the first responses after the competition was: “You have created such enthralling floor plans. Why create such conservative facades?” I construed this not as criticism, but instead as validation. After all, we wanted to create an urban quarter. Which does not live by having loud, shrieking buildings standing around in urban spaces.

KG At

MSP It was then that we adopted the freedom to design an insulated concrete, a wooden, and a masonry building. Earlier, we had built a large apartment building in wood. This time, we wanted to display the material within. MS My motto in contrast was: don’t go there! Those who were interested in modern and technological experimentation took the bull by the horns. Their innovative buildings do not reflect the urban concept, but are developed instead in a modern and autonomous way out of the material. They dance to a different tune most of all: the building in insulated concrete and the one in wood with shingles. At the masonry building, on the other hand, the material is not visible, because it is plastered.

Our pioneering constructive approach is the use of Porotherm brick single-layer masonry. It allowed us to create this beautiful, thick wash plaster. But to prescribe it for everything? That seems to us a bit bland. There is this diversity, not just that of the author and the owner, but also of the one who beholds the building.

AK

Inner Worlds AS Your basic urban planning system could be summarized as: Excessively large volumes stand closely alongside one another. What did this make possible architectonically? MS The side street between our two buildings is ten meters in width. Which in fact seems to us a bit too narrow. In Kreis 5, the streets, which are fifteen or sixteen meters in width, are critical. And our buildings are also going to have rather tall trees. Above the bases, our facades spring back or project, in order to admit the evening sun. KG With

these “excessively large buildings and too-narrow side streets,” we wanted to provoke precisely such solutions. In the various buildings, the approaches are shaped very differently. And not every location or spatial program could be dealt with equally effectively.

AS To some extent, the depths of the buildings provoked quite beautiful interior circulation spaces. AK Yes,

we hollowed out our building with the conventional flats. We thought: the people who live here will be seeking neighborliness, will want to see one another. They care about more than

cheap housing. Each living space has a window that opens onto an interior circulation space. This common hall is kind of crazy.

MSP It

In our wooden house, this takes the form of a common courtyard beginning with the first upper story, and a kind of orangery. The building stands in the shadow of the large concrete building. We couldn’t build large volumes there, so had to respond differently.

MSP Basically, of course, it’s really terrific what became possible here: the double-story spaces, the orangery. These are things that don’t exist in normal residential development. To some extent, we have to take ourselves to task as well: we followed the call for standardization too little. Under time pressure, and with a lack of coordination, we were to some extent overstretched as well.

MSP

Realization AS During the planning process, the coop­ erative placed the realization in the hands of a general contractor. In your view, what problems did this generate? PM

The only problem was the moment of the switch, namely two-thirds through the building project. This led to marked delimitation problems: the contract had yet to be negotiated, while at the same time, it was necessary to finalize a part of the current phase with a new client.

AS Were the unconventional forms of construction called into question? MSP At

one point, it was touch and go with the wooden house. Astonishingly, the insulated concrete building was never called into question by the contractor.

KG I

think things worked out with the concrete building because it already had its essential features as a shell construction. With the two wooden buildings, a great deal was still very much open at the moment of the commission. The operations of a general contractor stand in opposition to the complex planning of such a wooden structure. Everywhere where the commission is clearly formulated, it can function. Where objectives had to be negotiated in a continuing procedure, things were difficult.

AK Also, the general contractor absolutely wanted to get the contract, and created problems with the price they submitted. AS Did pressures to cut costs begin to bite at some point, even to the point of pain?

44 45

was grumbling at the highest level.

AS But

you don’t grumble at all.

KG What

I regret most of all is that in places, sacrifices were made where smart interventions might’ve made something else possible. When it came to implementation, unfortunately, we were no longer responsible for coordination. But I assume it would have been worth it for the general contractor.

MSP It

was extremely complex, after all.

KG Yes,

but the idea was that a large enterprise could master this complexity. It may be that as a smaller, more flexible firm, we could’ve intervened more intelligently, that is, where it might have been more effective.

MS At least with our buildings, I’m quite satisfied with the execution. True, the parquet flooring is only 4 mm thick instead of 8. And different banisters may have worked better; now, they are all the same. Still, I’m amazed that the general contractor worked things out despite all of this chaotic multiplicity. It should also be pointed out that we defended ourselves. There were a number of meetings. In the end, much was realized that is very fine.

Model or Prototype? AS What is your personal conclusion? What is the role of experiments such as More than Housing? Should there be more of them? MSP I’m quite pleased. Now, whether the experiment actually succeeds is dependent less on the architecture, and more instead on how the estate, with all its new residential forms, its mixture, and the common or publicly used

ground levels, are received. At the moment, it looks as though it’s going to come off. AK For

us, the work was stimulating, ­­excit­ing, enthralling; for the other architects as well, I believe. The cooperative identifies strongly with the project, and I’m confident it will become a genuine neighborhood. There are taken away many, many things that we learned here.

PM Repeat

the experiment? Absolutely! But not as a model, instead as a genuine experiment: You define a practice area, you begin, attempt to attain something new. Thirteen buildings react to one another — that’s a great achievement! Life is just moving in, but you already have the feeling that the planned new quarter is not something out of a test tube, although everything was built simultaneously. The client had a vision, the architects a mission. I would recommend doing the same thing at other locations. But never with the claim of producing a model, then things go awry. KG Our greatest ambition was to see the locale accepted as part of the city, and for the residents to participate in shaping it. When the sausage stand of the construction workers stands next to the entrance to the subterranean garage, that is the first signal of the quality of the open spaces. I’m delighted with that. Whether collective life actually functions remains to be seen. But I’m already enthusiastic about the level of public dialog we’ve conducted: for all of us here, many things have now become self-evident as aspects of housing development. Elsewhere, there is still work to be done. MS The diversity that is evident here was in­‑ ­ erent in our work. But it’s above all the conceph tion of Andreas Hofer: his image of a social, functional, and constructive mixture. It’s exciting. It distinguishes our quarter from many other housing estates.

Discussion: Teaching Building “The Architects did Not Play the Key Role Here” TEXT AND MODERATION

Axel Simon AS Participants

Claudia Schwalfenberg, SIA Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects CS Dietmar Eberle, ETH Zürich DE Andreas Hofer, More than Housing AH

The demands placed on contemporary building are multiplying and its complexity is increasing. What can architects faced with this change in their job profile learn from More than Housing? A discussion with architect Dietmar Eberle, cooperative representative Andreas Hofer and building-culture expert Claudia Schwalfenberg

AS Andreas Hofer, the idea for this discussion came from you. What was your motivation? AH In the seven years since the genesis of the idea for this very complex project More than Housing, we have repeatedly had to ask ourselves fundamental questions: Do we have the right professions for this changing world? Are architects able to adapt to the new challenges? Things have become so complex that perhaps a certain degree of modesty is required but also the ability to look for know-how in other places. We came to the conclusion that we should take a critical look back and consider what we could have done better. AS

Can you describe a concrete experience?

AH We often encountered problems when roles needed to be redefined. This was a situation in which five architectural offices were working together based on a principle of dialog. In the initial phase everything went well. It was about urban development, about deciding who would construct which building and what sort of character it would have. It sometimes reminded me of studying at the ETH when we were learning to talk about strategies and concepts. However, when we entered the next phase, which was about implementing these principles and finding synergies while also dealing with cost pressures, things didn’t function at all. Suddenly everyone was the biggest and best architect. Everyone was working against everyone else, ganging up against the general contractor and at times even against the property developer. That was a difficult experience and cost us a lot of energy.

Artist or Organizer? AS A project leader from the City of Zürich told me that it is quite normal in the case of a big project for several people to drop out because of burnout: contractors, planners, architects. Dietmar Eberle, does building today constantly place excessive demands on everyone involved? DE No. This is a question of organizing the processes involved, which, by the way, is not the task of the architect. The organization of a building process is in the first place a matter for the developer, the cooperative, the building

46 47

Andreas Hofer

Dietmar Eberle

Axel Simon

Claudia Schwalfenberg

owner. We cannot expect the architect to assume the role of the building owner. But today building owners are often no longer in a position to clearly define their aims and this becomes the architects’ problem. The other side of this is that we are learning more and more about the different impacts of buildings and react by claiming that one person can still deal with all this. This is of course not true. It would be ridiculous to go to your dentist and tell him to operate on your heart. That doesn’t work. Dentists and surgeons are both physicians but the things they are able to do are different, because they have completely different types of knowledge.

appearance was also an important factor for us. We didn’t say that architecture is over and now it’s only about insulation, ventilation, and social processes! In a part of Zürich resistant to development, we took the issue of the character of buildings very seriously. That the situation became excessively demanding seems to be a result of the implications of this approach. CS You said at the beginning that this is a complex project subject to restrictive conditions. You want to be innovative, you want to e ­ xperiment. That needs investment. DE But

AS

Claudia Schwalfenberg, how does someone working in the field of building culture see the job profile of the architect? CS The perception of architecture is still marred by a lot of clichés, for example, the idea that architects refuse to make compromises. This is the image of the architect you find, for instance, in the film The Fountainhead, from 1949. I see it as a relic of a time gone by that has very little to do with contemporary reality. Today’s architects have very different understandings of their profession. AS Andreas Hofer said before that everyone thought they were the biggest and the best and that they knew everything. My own experience is that many architects still see themselves as brilliant artists. CS That’s valid to some extent. Architects are supposed to play a fundamental role in shaping our environment, and it is therefore right that they attach importance to their job as designers. The question is: What is the architect’s task when it comes to a specific project? Is he only the designer or is he responsible for ensuring the completion of the building? AS Today the industry needs team players rather than lone warriors. Are architects up to this? AH As a client I want a building. This building has to be a whole entity that appears as such, is stable, meets current energy requirements, and functions as a metabolic system. This new residential quarter is witness to the fact that

48 49

how many people can actually experiment? You can’t expect that of a normal architect. I think that although you chose good architects the requirement profile here was really very complex. This is what made the situation excessively demanding. And it is your stated ambition to create something that goes beyond normal, beyond conventional. I think that’s wonderful but it’s the reason why the question of occupational profile can’t be answered here. You need a very special professional profile that covers ideas, ideals, approaches, and dispositions. This is not something you find in everyday architecture. I would of course be happy for you if there was more of it in the normal run of things. AH My initial thesis was that we have a special situation here. Our formulation of certain requirements has been somewhat exaggerated but there are lessons here that have a more general application. DE What

lessons? In my view, it is not the architects who played the key role here but rather you as the client. You had to constrain the architects, and now you cannot make them responsible retrospectively for these constraints.

AH Let’s take the provision of energy for the project. Municipal building law prescribes Minergie-P-Eco, which is the most ambitious energy standard. After struggling with the city authorities we were permitted to deliver alternative energy concepts and achieve a balance over the entire site. And what do the technical ­planners say? “What standard should we work with: Minergie-A, Minergie-P, or 2,000 watts?” When I say that we simply want something sensible, then there’s no response! In this sense, my criticism is

not aimed at the architects but at the planning system that ultimately leaves them with the thankless role of somehow bringing things together again. DE Knowledge about many areas of building has been lost. As someone who deals with physics I can see that a lot of what the building technicians say is wrong. Does it make sense to work with calculations that are wrong just because they correspond to the current model? I would criticize some of my colleagues for not accepting that their knowledge in this complex area is simply too meager. AH When working on an energy project, architects design the roof edges a little higher so that solar panels will not be visible. That’s approximately the level of knowledge in this area.

AS Let’s take the main square in the Hunziker Areal, which using the name of the central square in Zürich was dubbed the “Idaplatz for everyone” following the competition. Where can you find a comparable residential estate with public uses on the ground levels? In order to build such an Idaplatz here you need to break with convention. For me this is an interesting aspect of this project, the fact that ways were found to rebuild something that was once regarded as conventional, such as the Wilhelminian-style urban square. AH Architects have an implicit knowledge that has to do with quality. And I believe that every architect prefers to draw a townhouse with a high ground floor rather than a cheerless balcony balustrade. In this respect, we profited from the architects’ desires. It is unbelievable how much energy they can generate if you let them. DE For

Housing Estate or Neighborhood? AS Today requirements are not limited to sustainability or building quality. Comfort and contemporary concepts of living also need to be taken into account. The notion of simplicity runs into problems here. Expectations are expanding and this is having an impact on housing. Are today’s demands generally too high? CS The Hunziker Areal is also the attempt to offer residential forms in which what is still an increasing living area per person in general becomes smaller again. The questions are always: Where do requirements come into conflict with one another? And: What am I prepared to make available? I think it’s very important to state that we are not only concerned with dwelling units but with bringing the neighborhood to life. This also represents an increase in the requirements placed in the project, but it makes sense. DE

The really big contribution here is actually generating more life in the neighborhood. The second one involves using different residential forms to dissolve the rigid family orientation of the traditional dwelling and create the possibility of other forms of social organization. The third is the economic dimension: relatively low housing costs. This is a highly relevant social aspect and also the fundamental task of a housing cooperative.

me the project is a hybrid of residential estate and city. The only criticism I would like to raise here is: the project does not go far enough in terms of what it actually wants to be — a city. All the facades are shaped by the internal organization of the structure. But in a city context, it should be the opposite: the square defines the building facades and they in turn define the interior spaces lying behind them. AS And in the case of a residential estate it is the other way round: the interior determines the external appearance. DE Exactly. Here it is hybrid, ambivalent, which perhaps corresponds to our contemporary ideals. On the one hand, we value these urban qualities but at the same time we are still caught in the internal organization, that is in the residential estate. AH I think that the architects who took part here would take issue with you on this point. I was astounded by the way these young people referred as a matter of course to heavy, northern Italian buildings and furiously built models out of Styrofoam. This is a different way of engaging with the concept of city. DE I

also believe that they would have preferred to build in a more city-oriented way.

CS We always want interesting uses. But can our ideas work out? Can we, say, put a shop here where people can buy food? And is that also a model for other locations? DE In

urban development the density, the degree of saturation, decide whether the ground-level uses and public spaces function. Here the density is significantly greater than in normal estates. I think this is real progress. But you could have made it even denser.

AH I don’t think that the issue is the size of the buildings or the density. Despite the dimensions of the project we were not able to prove that today it is possible to build a traditional urban quarter. What is missing here is the sense of expanse: the buildings in Wilhelminian quarters have not only a city side but also a park side. This is what turns urban development back into the residential estate, albeit one that is well integrated and exhibits a highly urban character at its center.

fact it makes things compatible that do not fit together. But when I look at our surroundings there is an Ibis Hotel, there the Leutschenbach­School finds an arc of tension based on diversity. Bringing together these different things and perhaps not dispensing with all ambiguity is also one of the project’s strengths.

AS On

the one hand, there is the idea of the residential quarter, which is based in part on the idea that the buildings enter into a dialog with one another. On the other hand, there is the idea of innovation. For some of the architects the first idea was more impor­tant, while for others it was the second. Pool Architekten, for instance, designed a wooden building, a cement building and a brick building, that is they focused above all on structural experimentation. Wasn’t there friction between these two objectives, conflict between the laboratory and the exigencies of everyday living? AH I

really like this aspect. It seems that this process ensured that we didn’t just end up with thirteen individual buildings and possibly an artificially generated diversity. The program and collaboration resulted in the fact, for example, that the wooden building has a certain self-­ evident quality and the cement building is at the right location and strengthens the square.

CS In

Innovation Platform or Everyday Residential Living? AS Let’s

move from the urban-developmental level back to the structural one again. At the beginning the project was associated not only with the terms quarter and neighborhood but also with the concept of an innovation platform. What is meant by that? A type of model housing estate?

AH At

the outset we announced to the entire Swiss building industry: If anyone wants to try out something new, then they will get the opportunity to do so here. There were relatively few responses. However, the project was conceived as a platform not only at the technological level but also the social level. To this extent it is not so much a model housing estate like those designed by the Werkbund as it is an open interface that can be configured.

50 51

AS What do the others think: a pleasing diversity? CS I find the question of residential forms more important. What really impresses me is the fact that when looking at many of the spaces I spontaneously find myself thinking that this would be a good place for a party. The differences between the buildings are not central to me. I would not find it bad if some of the residential units had the same design. DE Yet it is decisive that the architects made an effort to conduct this dialog. We can always discuss the role of convention. There are buildings here that are more capable of dialog than others. AS The “Hunziker Areal laboratory” is testing out new residential forms, new types of construction. This process is also new. Which of these levels of innovation is more significant for building culture in general? DE For me, the project’s most important contribution is to shift away from the character of the residential estate and generate qualities that are identifiably urban. By contrast, the level of innovation is not so very high.

CS I don’t think these aspects can be viewed in isolation from one another. It is important that we address all levels and communicate this: at the moment we are planning an exhibition, an app, and print publications. Here architectural tourism is not seen as a burden but, from the outset, has been regarded as something to be welcomed.

More than Open Space

Sabine Wolf

THREE-FIELD SYSTEM Generating a design for new forms of cohabitation, dwelling, and working is a big task. How are community, versatility of use, and occupancy options articulated in a landscape architecture project? How does a whole quarter, in the sense of a neighborhood, organize itself into a heterogeneous urban structure? How do a specific character and a shared, lived identity emerge? The significance of open spaces for the new quarter and its urban developmental, architectural, and future social structure was already taken into consideration during the developmental and planning process. From the beginning, landscape design and built architecture were conceived as developmental partners; the urban developmental concept emerged from a single mold. The radical, farsighted and courageous master plan impresses as a unit combining urban development, architecture, and landscape design: five public squares, thirteen urban multidwelling buildings, commons, playgrounds, communal gardens, and areas available for different uses form a dense mosaic. They self-confidently establish a typology in line with the vision elaborated by the housing cooperative in workshops, “plan bars,” “world cafés,” information events, and the dialog phase. The design dogma of accommodating the surrounding urban structure has been set aside here with refreshing results. The quarter’s integration into the neighborhood is not achieved via a formal harmonization of its built structures but rather through a manifold networking of its open spaces. Structural Clarity The landscape architects Klaus Müller and Rita Illien have spanned the area with a basic planar pattern that encompasses classical functions such as re­creation, children’s play, access, parking, utilities, and waste removal as well as occupancy. This is new and extends the repertoire of utilization. It is envisioned that the future occupants will have different possibilities of appropriating and bringing their own design to particular areas. The close and intelligent dovetailing of architecture and landscape design is already conspicuous in the ground plan; scale, proportion, and form speak a shared language, in some places with the design tools of architecture, in others with those of landscape design. The fact that the landscape-architectural framework had already been clearly conceived from the beginning positively influenced the architecture of the buildings with their four main facades and helped to define rules with regard to the quality and design of the ground floors. By making the latter conspicuously high and enabling them to accommodate different uses with regard to the movement of people, the design lends the space a flowing quality. Just as the entire quarter dovetails with its environs in terms of size, the buildings themselves interlock with their immediate surroundings. This structural clarity facilitates an intuitive readability of the quarter. Arranging and Overlaying Müller and Illien combine two central strategies in their design. The first is what Klaus Müller calls area management: a certain attitude permeates the design of the spaces, their sequences and transitions. This invites improvisation and further development. The second involves a process of overlaying or superimposition:

52 53

Plan of the exterior space. Based on the principle of the “three-field system,” differently designed spaces assume diverse functions and invite further development and varied forms of utilization.

54 55

of areas, uses, planted zones, paving, lighting, and structures, exigencies and possibilities. This approach gave Müller and Illien the freedom to shape showcase spaces, to set emphases in places they deemed important, and to inten­tionally leave their own, discernible mark. The flat open spaces lie around the new quarter like a protective ribbon. Communal gardens, orchard commons studded with wild flowers, ruderal vegetation, flowerbeds and grassed gravels form a green prelude to the complex, its networking and buffer zone. The orchard commons and a playground provide for a continuation of Andreas Park to the south along a railway embankment, which, with its hedges, has been inventoried as a municipal nature conservation asset and is part of the axial network along the Oerlikon–Wallisellen line. Müller and Illien’s design thus meets the requirements of a municipal ordinance issued in 2002 regarding the urban planning concept for the Steiner/Hunziker Areal, which states that the open area along Andreasstrasse is to be developed into a continuous public park. Maintenance obligations are regulated by a contract between the city council and the cooperative. The alleys and squares are shaped by native trees growing in rows and groups. The choice of plants takes into account the high groundwater level of the former marsh and provides a reference to the history of the district. Different varieties of maple are on the squares, and juneberry, aspen, Cornelian cherry, service trees and wild cherry can be seen along the quarter’s alleyways. Strips of trees offer visual cover. Large willows, poplars, gray alders, and birches fringe the spaces between the buildings and the few parking areas. The lawn areas are dotted by fruit trees: walnut, cherry, apple, pear, and plum. The choice of plants based on the different spatial situations forms a self-evident patchwork that recalls a farming economy — the flowering of crop species on agricultural land over the course of growing seasons and years. It also facilitates different uses of areas where needed without destroying the overall concept. On the contrary, adaptations to the changing needs of the residents, varying through the seasons, lend the young quarter a history. This is spectacularly evident in the “hanging gardens of Leutschenbach.” On the building at Hagenholzstrasse 104 designed by Müller Sigrist Architekten, large cement plant boxes set across the stories and multistory trellises made of chrome steel cable adorn the facade facing Hunzikerplatz. Residents are welcome to supplement the landscape architects’ initial plant design with herbs and use plants, thereby participating in the design of a collective garden. Squares, Paths, Networks As the quarter’s main square, Hunzikerplatz, with its attached commercial and social functions, forms the heart of the estate and its interface with the public. The square provides the location for a restaurant, seminar and commercial spaces, a workshop for the disabled, and the cooperative administration office, the reception area of which also serves as the foyer of a twenty-room guesthouse. The marlstone surface of the square sits like an intarsia amid the surrounding asphalt. The fixtures are robust and to a large extent mobile — a ­location for the weekly market, the neighborhood festival, and everyday life. The drinking and playing fountain at the southern end is becoming a meeting point for young and old; a group of multistemmed Norway maples will one day provide shade.

Two of these trees have also been planted on the other side of the adjacent thoroughfare, which bears the name Dialogweg. In this way Müller and Illien have marked the focal point of the square and somewhat reduced the structural dominance of the Dialogweg axis. Set diagonally to Hunzikerplatz is a smaller square, which represents the “hardest” urban space. Futurafrosch designed the exit from the underground garage as a small pavilion with an open, overhanging roof. A green curtain will soon grow over the edge of the roof and reshape the view into and out of the garage. The rich assortment of plants reflects the theme of area management on a small scale. Large cement plates with vegetation growing in their joints form the ground surface. They are one of the few original references to the former industrial character of the location. A second is the now incorporated concrete silo of the former Hunziker Cement Products Factory. It has been erected in the plant garden on Andreas Park as a living space for urban wildlife such as pigeons, bats, bees, and falcons. On the eastern part of the site, another small square is located between the buildings at Genossenschaftsstrasse 16 and 18 and Hagenholzstrasse 108. During construction these were referred to as buildings K, L, and M, and these letters have been used as an initial name for the square, which provides a play area for small children. Its open southern side faces the large lawn area around Leutschenbach School. Müller and Illien reacted to this situation with a tectonic image of linear surfaces: strips of grass alternate with gravel, sand, and a macadamized strip. The small children’s playground is embedded in the implied topography; the different surfaces and a water feature invite play. Six silver maples are distributed around the square and contribute to its easy character. In a situation where architecture and landscape design mutually concede each other’s spaces, the open space is not something that simply remains between the buildings; access areas become mediators between uses. In the Hunziker Areal this space is a mixed surface that seamlessly connects with the facades without barriers or thresholds. Dynamic and well-proportioned, the sequences of thoroughfares and squares enclose the buildings and link them into a unity. The streets, which can carry vehicles for the purposes of delivering goods and removing waste, are also spaces for the residents. Bicycle stands can be found under the trees and on the squares. The aboveground parking areas for visitors and goods deliveries are located on the central ring access to Dialogweg and Genossenschaftsstrasse. The entrance to and exit from the underground garage containing 106 parking spaces (parking spaces are only available to residents who can prove they need them) are located on the edge of the quarter at the start of Genossenschaftsstrasse. When construction began, the remains of the original reed landscape in the form of a small overgrown forest in a slight depression could be found on the eastern edge of the site. It was envisioned that this could be cleared of undergrowth and provide an outside area for the estate’s day care center. However, the construction of access conduits for electricity lines, the condition of the trees, and the infrastructure of the building site led to most of this little forest being destroyed. Now the tree stock is being replaced with black alder, willow, and pussy willow. Müller and Illien have also designed the adjacent zones of other day care centers such that they can be seen as an element of the facility as a whole. Hedges provide the required boundaries.

56 57

A New Era In spite of the Hunziker Areal’s building density, the design of its open spaces has actually increased the site’s biodiversity by supplementing ruderal areas and dry grasslands, replacing former vegetation stock with a network of green corridors and stepping stones on the borders to surrounding plots. A monitoring of the development of flora and fauna on the site would be desirable and could possibly help clarify the current discussion about density, which is dominated by fears of species loss. The open spaces in the Hunziker Areal and the process of their development represent an object lesson in finding designs for new forms of habitation and work in a weakly defined, peripheral area. Its immanent principle is densification through dialog, the process-oriented development of the new based on an analysis of existing stock and trust in a participative process that is more than merely a hearing but that promotes inspiration and thereby unfolds design energies. Especially when it comes to open space, the achieved form is always only an interim stage, a new point of departure for further changes, adaptations, and growth. Giving this kind of weight to an open, dialogic process in the context of designing a large project is a risk. It requires patience, communicative competence, and a tolerance for frustration from the specialists involved. At the same time, it means that common values are outlined from the beginning and that the project is embedded in a social and territorial context. The open space design in the Hunziker Areal has great potential to be­­ come a motor of future cohabitation. As sites that can be enjoyed at all times of the day and year, the open spaces facilitate a diverse range of uses by all residents. The homogeneous heterogeneity of these spaces lends the quarter its character, and their design has contributed to making the Hunziker Areal a pioneering project. In terms of its process design, the project is an object lesson for a new planning culture and its result an object lesson for the urban development of tomorrow. It marks the beginning of a new era of urban neighborhoods in which the design of open spaces is accorded a central role.

plans

Duplex Architekten

BUILDING A and M Miroslav Šik

BUILDING B, C, K Müller Sigrist Architekten

BUILDING D, E, H Futurafrosch

BUILDING F and I pool Architekten

BUILDING G, J, L

62 63

g l-We i-Abe Heid

se

stras

holz

en Hag

bus stop

More

visitor’s car park

er guest

ce/Hunzik

erative offi

ing coop than Hous

house

hairdressing salon

activity area

bakery

seedling nursery

underground car park . access mobility station violin maker's studio

gweg

cultural salon

Hunziker-Platz

commons

Riedgrabenweg

reception

Dialo

Riedgraben

restaurant

work rooms

nail studio

commons

s

mastering studio music room

common

dance occupational therapy workshop

dio

ga stu

and yo

commons

kindergarten

boules field

kindergarten gallery

Pocket Platz

office

office

psychology practice

kindergarten

music room

playground

Andreaspark

Andrea

Andreasstrasse

N

0

50

100m

site plan, ground floor

u elia-G Cord ggen s on mm co

-Weg heim bus

p

sto

og

geh

hed

and

e

offic

s

on

mm

co

y pr

olog

ych

r, ps

te cen

ice act

painter’s shop

kindergarten

d

remedial teaching school

graphic art studio

commons

janitor

Genossenschaftsstrasse

art therapy practice

remedial teaching school visitor’s car park

editorial office children’s clothing exchange

kindergarten

office

latz

KLM-P

playgroun

make-upacademy

kindergarten

playground

meditation studio

school complex Leutschenbach seedling nursery

aspark

64 65

Saatlenfussweg

take-away

Duplex Architekten Building A Architects Utilization

Dialogweg 6 Duplex Architekten, Zürich 6 cluster apartments with 10.5 and 5 with 12.5 rooms; occupational workshop; gallery; ZKJ Foundation apartment; Züriwerk Foundation apartment Plastered single-layer masonry Decentralized ventilation on demand with heat recovery Cluster apartments around a large areaway, workshops for the disabled, gallery, raised ground floor connecting to Andreas Park 6,883 m2 3,937 m2

Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

415 m2 22,288 m3

N

N

0

5

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen Grundriss Regelgeschoss, Dialogweg 6

0

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

10m

A

BESCHRIFTUNG

BESCHRIFTUNG

single-layer masonry cross-section and front view building A 1:100

BESCHRIFTUNG

A

Facing Hunziker Platz, the building housing the cluster apartments exerts a powerful effect. Large expanses of glass provide views into and out of the communal areas, while the individual residential units feature French windows and small balconies.

Prior to occupation, Duplex Architekten placed rented furniture in the cluster apartments in order to illustrate the different utilization possibilities.

Duplex Architekten Building M Architects Utilization

Genossenschaftsstrasse 16 Duplex Architekten, Zürich 5 apartments with 6.5 rooms; 5 apartments with 5.5 rooms; 10 apartments with 4.5 rooms; 5 apartments with 3.5 rooms; 4 studios; day care center; school for therapeutic pedagogy Plastered single-layer masonry Exhaust air system with pressure limiters in the facade and heat recovery, thermal collectors, ground heat exchanger Large interior courtyard over entrance area of the childcare center with glass brick light domes 6,484 m2 3,097 m2

Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

N

0

826 m2 20,910 m3

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

10m

N

0

68 69

5

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen Grundriss Regelgeschoss, Genossenschaftsstrasse 16 DUPLEX architekten, Zürich

M

+2.45 OK F

H

single-layer masonry cross-section and front view building M 1:100

M

“Built Piranesi” was the way the journal Hochparterre described this stairway ensemble. Below the glass brick insets on the floor lies the reception room for the kindergarten.

70 71

Miroslav Šik Building B Architect Utilization

Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

Dialogweg 3 Architekturbüro Miroslav Šik, Zürich 10 apartments with 5.5 rooms; 13 apartments with 4.5 rooms; 4 apartments with 3.5 rooms; 5 apartments with 2.5 rooms; 2 studios; 2 work rooms; office; psycho­ therapeutic practice Solid construction, compact facade, raised ground floor without basement Decentralized ventilation on demand with heat recovery Linear access space with six light shafts, exclusively residential building 5,236 m2 3,413 m2 41 m2 16,598 m3

N

0

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

N

0

5

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen Grundriss Regelgeschoss, Dialogweg 3

10m

B

compact facade, no cellar cross-section and front view building B 1:100

72 73

B

Six small lightwells structure the long access space and create ­private transitional zones in front of the apartment doors. A window in the corridor allows for views into the private sphere.

C

Miroslav Šik Building C Architect Utilization Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

Dialogweg 7 Architekturbüro Miroslav Šik, Zürich 1 apartment with 9.5 rooms; 22 apartments with 3.5 rooms; 12 apartments with 2.5 rooms; dance and yoga studio; nail studio; day care center; 2 common rooms Solid construction, compact facade Exhaust air system with pressure limiters in the facade Small apartments with internal laundries, storage rooms, and common room 5,447 m2 2,847 m2 355 m2 17,473 m3

N

N

0

74 75

5

0

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen Grundriss Regelgeschoss, Dialogweg 7 Architekturbüro Miroslav Sik

10m

compact facade cross-section and front view building C 1:100

C

The building exclusively made up of small apartments lies on the western side of Hunziker Platz. The ground floor has been equipped to house an assisted living group. Currently a kindergarten is using the rooms, which abut a green area.

76 77

Miroslav Šik Building K Architect Utilization

Genossenschaftsstrasse 18 Architekturbüro Miroslav Šik, Zürich 3 apartments with 8.5 rooms; 2 apartments with 9.5 rooms; 3 apartments with 6 rooms; 6 apartments with 5 rooms; 6 apartments with 4.5 rooms; 4 work rooms; take-away diner; graphic artist’s studio, painting workshop; 2 common rooms Solid construction, compact facade, no basement Exhaust air system with pressure limiters in the facade Two large atriums, two-floor maisonettes for shared households 5,453 m2 3,014 m2

Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

630 m2 17,681 m3

N

N

0

5

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen Grundriss Regelgeschoss, Genossenschaftsstrasse 18 Architekturbüro Miroslav Sik

0

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

10m

K

compact facade cross-section and front view building K 1:100

78 79

K

In the southwestern corner three large, two-story apartments have been “interwoven” with one another.

The apartments extend along a diagonal axis from the two linked stairwells to the balconies in the corners of the building.

Müller Sigrist Architekten Building D Architects Utilization

Dialogweg 11 Müller Sigrist Architekten, Zürich 4 apartments with 5.5 rooms; 16 apartments with 4.5 rooms; 4 apartments with 3 rooms; 6 apartments with 3.5 rooms; 2 apartments with 2 rooms; 2 apartments with 2.5 rooms; 4 studios; bakery; culture salon Solid construction, compact facade Exhaust air system with pressure limiters in the facade Split-level staggered floors with high living spaces 6,066 m2 3,361 m2

Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

N

515 m2 19,815 m3

0

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

N

80 0 81

5

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen

10m

D

DAC

CNS

REG

Son Sen - Ac - 31

Fen Alum - NC

Fen Alum - NC

Abd Alum - NC

Gew Glat - An

Fass Verp - Ho - Kö - An aus Lasu

ERD

Son Kein

Fen Alum - NC

Abg Stre - NC

Soc Ortb - Ho - Bin - Ob

Haus D _ Fassadenansicht1:20_ MüllerSigristArchitekten , www.muellersigrist .ch

compact facade with exposed conrete plinth cross-section and front view building D 1:100

Rev. Datum:19.09.2014

D An elaborate split-level access area allows for one-and-a-half story living/ eating/loggia zones in almost every apartment.

The half-story offset arrangement begins in the entrance area and the commercial spaces on the ground floor.

82 83

Müller Sigrist Architekten Building E Architects Utilization Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

Hagenholzstrasse 104 a / b Müller Sigrist Architekten, Zürich 5 apartments with 6.5 rooms; 15 apartments with 4.5 rooms; 10 apartments with 3.5 rooms; guesthouse; office of the cooperative; restaurant Solid construction, suspended wooden facade Exhaust air system with pressure limiters in the facade Entrance hall, reception area, hotel, vertical garden 6,557 m2 3,043 m2 1,117 m2 21,115 m3

N

N

0

5

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen Grundriss Regelgeschoss, Hagenholzstrasse 104 a/b Müller Sigrist Architekten AG

0

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

10m

E + 22.16

DACHRAND

CNS gebürstet

REGELGESCHOSSE Sonnenschutz: Senkrechtmarkise - Acrylstoff Typ Sattler - 314 921 120

Fenster Holz-Metall: Aluminium einbrennlackiert - NCS S 8502 Y Fensterbänke: Aluminium einbrennlackiert - NCS S 8502 Y

Abdeckbleche: - NCS S 8502 Y Brüstung Staketengeländer: Stahl duplexiert - NCS S 8502 Y

Stützen: - NCS S 8502 Y Holzfassade und Leibungen: Nordfichte mit PEFC Zertifizierung - Dimension/ Oberfläche der Schalung: Sägerohe Oberfläche, Stärke 28 mm, Breiten 95/ 145/ 193 mm - Oberflächenbehandlung: 3-fach Aufbau 1 x rundum Hydrogrundierung mit BP farblos 1 x rundum Böhme Woodcare Paint Nr. 5498 1 x Sichtseite Böhme Woodcare Paint Nr. 5498 (entspricht NCS S 8005-Y50R+0.5% Alu) Deckenstirnelemente: Betonfertigelemente - betongrau, schalungsglatt - Oberfläche hydrophobiert

ERDGESCHOSS Sonnenschutz: Gelenkarmmarkise, elektrisch - Acrylstoff Typ Sattler - 314 763 120

Fenster und Leibungsblech: Aluminium einbrennlackiert - NCS S 8502 Y Abgehängte Metalldecke: Streckmetall - NCS S 8502 Y

Sockel: Betonfertigelemente - betongrau, schalungsglatt - Oberflächen hydrophobiert

± 0.00

Haus E _ Fassadenansicht 1:20 _ Müller Sigrist Architekten, www.muellersigrist.ch Rev. Datum: 02.07.2014

rear-ventilated wooden facade/solid construction cross-section and front view building E 1:100

E

Plant troughs on the protruding and recessed balconies form the basis of a seven-story, vertical garden.

A recess in the facade facing Hagenholzstrasse allows for apartments that extend through the 20-meter-deep building.

Müller Sigrist Architekten Building H Architects Utilization

Genossenschaftsstrasse 5 / 7 Müller Sigrist Architekten, Zürich 15 apartments with 4.5 rooms; 3 apartments with 3.5 rooms; 5 extra rooms with bathroom; 4 kindergartens Solid construction, compact facade Exhaust air system with pressure limiters in the facade Supporting ceiling above kindergarten on the ground floor 5,333 m2 2,917 m2

Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

N

565 m2 17,461 m3

0

5

10m

standard story floor plan 1:300

N

0

86 87

5

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen Grundriss Regelgeschoss, Genossenschaftsstrasse 5/7 Müller Sigrist Architekten AG

H

+ 19.32 DACHRAND CNS gebürstet

+ 19.32 DACHRAND CNS gebürstet

REGELGESCHOSSE Sonnenschutz: Senkrechtmarkise - Acrylstoff Typ Sattler - 314 921 120

Fenster Holz-Metall: Aluminium einbrennlackiert - NCS S 8000 N Fensterbänke: Aluminium einbrennlackiert - NCS S 8000 N Brüstung Balkone: Staketengeländer Stahl duplexiert - NCS S 8000 N

Fassade vordere Ebene: Verputz (grob) - Körnung 3 mm - Anstrich: NCS S 3005-G50Y Fassade eingedrückte Bereiche, Leibungen und Stürze: Verputz (fein) - Körnung 1.5 mm - Anstrich: NCS S 3005-G50Y

REGELGESCH

Sonnenschutz: Senkrechtmark - Acrylstoff Typ - 314 921 120

Fenster Holz-M Aluminium einb - NCS S 8000 N

Fensterbänke: Aluminium einb - NCS S 8000 N

Brüstung Balko Staketengeländ Stahl duplexiert - NCS S 8000 N

Fassade vorder Verputz (grob) - Körnung 3 mm - Anstrich: NCS

Fassade einged Leibungen und Verputz (fein) - Körnung 1.5 m - Anstrich: NCS

ERDGESCHOSS Sonnenschutz: Senkrechtmarkise - Acrylstoff Typ Sattler - 314 921 120

Fenster und Leibungsblech: Aluminium einbrennlackiert - NCS S 8000 N Abgehängte Metalldecke: Streckmetall - NCS S 8000 N

Sockel: Betonfertigelemente - schwarz eingefärbt - 6% Pigmentanteil - Oberflächen hydrophobiert

± 0.00

Haus H _ Fassadenansicht 1:20 _ Müller Sigrist Architekten, www.muellersigrist.ch

compact facade cross-section and front view building H 1:100

Rev. Datum: 02.07.2014

H

A relief formed by different rendering thicknesses and shapes structures the building, which contains family apartments as a well as a kindergarten on the ground floor.

88 89

Futurafrosch Building F Architect Utilization

Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

Hagenholzstrasse 106 Futurafrosch, Zürich 1 apartment with 7.5 rooms; 6 apartments with 5.5 rooms; 11 apartments with 4.5 rooms; 6 apartments with 3.5 rooms; 5 apartments with 2.5 rooms; 6 work rooms; hairdressing salon; makeup academy; common area Solid construction, compact facade Ventilation on demand with heat recovery Vertical terrace landscape on plinth 5,215 m2 2,894 m2 393 m2 16,742 m3

N

0

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

N

0

5

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen Grundriss Regelgeschoss, Hagenholzstrasse 106 a/b Futurafrosch GmbH

10m

F

90 91

compact facade with balcony layer made of prefabricated concrete elements cross-section and front view building F 1:100

F

The staggered balconies provide each apartment with a two-story “garden room.” The interiors behind this open area are organized around a strictly zoned ground plan featuring a series of rooms facing Hagenholzstrasse.

I

Futurafrosch Building I Architect Utilization

Dialogweg 2 Futurafrosch, Zürich Live-in studio, 5 cluster apartments with 8.5 to 13.5 rooms; 7 apartments with 3.5 rooms; 8 apartments with 4.5 rooms; extra room with bathroom; work room; music room; ZKJ Foundation apartment; Züriwerk Foundation apartments; meditation studio; office Internally naturally finished, solid wooden building around a solid core, suspended Eternit facade Ventilation on demand with heat recovery, active pressure limiters Three atriums in access core, cluster typology for family apartments and shared households, music practice rooms, raised ground floor connecting to Andreas Park 5,135 m2 3,063 m2

Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

N

0

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

N

92 93

0

5

142 m2 16,201 m3

10m

10m

Loggia

wooden/concrete hybrid construction cross-section and front view building I 1:100

I

Cluster typology as a structural principle: The stairwells and communal areas in the apartments form the “hard core.” The individual spaces are located in seven wooden towers; an Eternit (fiber cement) facade encases the entire structure.

94 95

pool Architekten Building G Architect Utilization

N

Construction Building technology

0

N

Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

Genossenschaftsstrasse 13 Pool Architekten, Zürich 3 apartments with 12.5 rooms; 2 apartments with 6.5 rooms; 6 apartments with 5.5 rooms; 16 apartments with 4.5 rooms; 3 extra rooms with bathroom; 3 work rooms; violin-builder’s studio; mastering studio; exhibition space; mobility station; music practice room; 4 common rooms Monolithic insulating concrete Exhaust air system with pressure limiters in the facade, retention basins for rain water use in four buildings Sauna, roof terrace, collective freezer, music studio and practice rooms 7,519 m2 3,869 m2

0

5

742 m2 24,196 m3

N

N

0

10m 10m

5

5

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen Grundriss Regelgeschoss, Genossenschaftsstrasse 13

0

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

10m

G

96 97

monolithic insulation concrete cross-section of front view building G 1:100

G

The concrete monolith defines every apartment in the building shell. Further subdivisions are created using lightweight walls and furniture.

J

pool Architekten Building J Architect Utilization

Genossenschaftstrasse 11 Pool Architekten, Zürich 4 apartments with 5.5 rooms; 10 apartments with 4.5 rooms; 8 apartments with 3.5 rooms; 2 studios; art-therapy practice; janitor; editorial office; children’s clothes exchange; office Internally naturally finished, solid wooden building around a solid core, suspended Eternit facade Exhaust air system with pressure limiters in the facade Two-level orangery in the southwest corner, open interior courtyard 4,021 m2 2,156 m2

Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

438 m2 13,391 m3

N

0

N

98 99

0

5

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen

10m

four-story solid wooden construction cross-section and front view building J 1:100

J

The two-story orangery compensates for the shadow cast by its large cement brother and the lack of individual balconies by providing a light-filled communal space in the southwestern corner.

100 101

pool Architekten Building L Architects Utilization

Hagenholzstrasse 108 a / b Pool Architekten, Zürich 2 live-in studios; 15 apartments with 4.5 rooms; 10 apartments with 3.5 rooms; 18 apartments with 2.5 rooms; Hedgehog Center; psychology practice; office /s  tudio Solid construction, compact facade, no cellar Exhaust air system with pressure limiters in the facade Live-in studios on the elevated ground floors 5,839 m2 3,450 m2

Construction Building technology Special features Floor area Usable living area Usable commercial /  communal area Volume

501 m2 18,257 m3

N

N

0

5

10m

Hunziker Areal, Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen Grundriss Regelgeschoss, Hagenholzstrasse 108 a/b pool Architekten

0

5

standard story floor plan 1:300

10m

L

102 103

compact facade with suspended ready-mixed concrete balconies cross-section and front view building L 1:100

L Large loggias in front of live-in studios and workshops are topped by balcony towers. A skeleton made of prefabricated cement elements anchors the massive structure and provides each apartment with an outside living space.

Discussion: Participation Participation generates identification Text and MODERATION

Margrit Hugentobler MH participants

Jürg Altwegg JA Corinna Heye CH Monika Sprecher MS Claudia Thiesen CT A panel discussion with Jürg Altwegg, Corinna Heye, Monika Sprecher, and Claudia Thiesen brings together “participation professionals” with a wealth of experience in the planning and realization of new cooperative residential construction projects.1 Under discussion are the different approaches to and makeup of participatory processes and what can be learned from them. 1 Jürg Altwegg was project leader of the multigenerational “Giesserei” estate, which belongs to the GESEWO cooperative in Winterthur and where he also lives. Corinna Heye led the “Social Intermixing” working group during the 2010-2011 participation process run by the Kalkbreite cooperative; she lives in the Dreieck cooperative. Claudia Thiesen was involved in various aspects of the development of estates by the Kraftwerk1 cooperative; she currently lives in a cluster apartment on the Heizenholz multigenerational estate. Monika Sprecher has been the managing director of the More than Housing cooperative since 2009 and was previously the managing director of the Zürich ­section of the umbrella association of Swiss housing cooperatives. She lives on an ABZ estate.

→ For more information about the participants in the discussion see the short biographies at the end of the book.

104 105

There is no ideal recipe for participation and codetermination, either in the planning or the operating phase. However, new forms of participation in these phases are showing great potential. MF The development of your housing estates already involved diverse participatory processes in the planning stage. How were they organized?

In Winterthur the GESEWO placed an announcement in the local paper directed at anyone interested in a multigenerational project. A small group of fifteen people formulated a set of aims: the estate should be close to the city center, quiet and, with twenty-five residential units, relatively small. An association was founded which organized working groups made up of volunteers. It soon became clear that proximity to the city center was not an option. We found a plot on the Sulzerareal of 11,000 square meters that had just come onto the market. That was enough room for 120 to 130 residential units, which in turn meant affordable rents. The association selected a building commission made up of specialists and members of the GESEWO board, who represented the interests of the residents. In areas where input seemed important the building commission presented the members with three or four variants. The ­building commission then worked with the developer to produce a planning program as a basis for the architectural competition. We wanted a solution that would allow us to change the apartment mix at a later point. The initially planned mix did not prove suitable, in part because the project had become much bigger. As a result, the apartments became more different from one another. JA

CT

In Heizenholz it was similar to the case of the Giesserei. The Kraftwerk1 cooperative had decided early on that it wanted to grow. The aim was to use the know-how gained from developing the first estate to develop further. An experienced management team and expert evaluations were already in place. In terms of its size Heizenholz was not ideal, but it offered the chance of using a small project to professionalize the cooperative’s project development process. Another aim was to define at an early stage which thematic areas were open to codetermination and which should be confined to consultation and the provision of

Corinna Heye (left) Margrit Hugentobler (right)

Jürg Altwegg (left) Claudia Thiesen (right)

Monika Sprecher

information. The first information event was attended by a lot of older people. They wanted to see a project with an emphasis on residential living in old age, but one with multigenerational apartments rather than a ghetto for the elderly. Soon the question arose as to what the group of interested parties could decide and what they couldn’t. The themes of coexistence, the community, the apartment mix, and the population mix were open to discussion. The results regarding the apartment mix were then used for the competition program. Codetermination also played a role in relation to the outside spaces, collectively used spaces, and mobility. Two members of the group had voting rights in the planning commission. However, building standards, materials, color design, and economic efficiency calculations were matters dealt with exclusively by the planning commission in consultation with outside experts. The Kalkbreite Residential and Commercial Project was developed from the outset with the neighborhood population. Regular information events took place from very early on. Throughout this process we endeavored to present our ideas and get a sense of the mood in the neighborhood. We also specifically invited people who were in a position to provide input. For example, following the competition the apartment mix was changed extensively on the basis of surveys. Due to the noisy location, the original plan was to build relatively only a few 4.5-room apartments for families. However, it later turned out that many couples wanted to move in as families.

CH

One element of the participatory aspect was the public competition, in which fifty-five firms took part. This significantly changed the project again. Ultimately the area built on was one-third bigger than originally planned. A specific aspect of this particular project was that the design plan was produced only after the competition had been run. The building commission was established after the competition. Another group was tasked with elaborating a utilization concept. This process was well organized by the utilization commission, which included people from the board, the administrative office, and the project leadership as well as a specialist. In order to become a member of a working group, you had to explain what you could bring to the process. There were

106 107

working groups on social intermixing, living with children, living in old age, cluster apartments, outside spaces, etc. Regular events were arranged that attracted between thirty and sixty people, at which the results achieved by the different working groups were presented and discussed. This process of negotiation between the groups was targeted and constructive, and it strengthened the relationship to Kalkbreite. In the end around 30 percent of those who participated moved in. In the next phase the process became more streamlined. There were three working groups which continued to work on leasing and organizational regulations and the functioning of the residents’ committee—that is, input into and, following occupation, the self-administration of the Kalkbreite Residential and Commercial Project. MS Yes, there are ideas and projects that are very clearly defined at the outset. In the case of More than Housing these plans included a building with small apartments for older people. However, this idea ultimately developed in quite a different direction. In the beginning the category being considered was fifty-plus, then sixty-plus. However, even older people found the idea of a residential building in which things are happening more appealing. Today there are many older people living in all buildings and, apart from in the satellite-apartment building, we have a very diverse apartment mix. Now there are a total of 370 residential units with more than 160 different layouts. That’s a little crazy, but because the mix is so broad everyone can find the residential form they’re looking for. CT This apartment mix was intensively discussed in the utilization group. We adopted ideas from Kraftwerk1 and looked at Kalkbreite’s approach. In addition, five different architectural firms designed thirteen buildings, and this automatically led to a high degree of diversity. CH The way apartments are leased is also important. An online registration tool was developed for Kalkbreite in order to monitor the allocation process in a better way. This online tool was further developed for the leasing process in the case of More than Housing. We wanted to be able to control the initial wave of leasing and monitor the population mix — which was ultimately defined by the cooperative.

CT There is another point to consider here: In the cases of Giesserei, Heizenholz, and Kalk­ breite the people providing input had a personal interest in the process. In the case of More than Housing there was a range of specialists and interested parties involved. Then construction was carried out and now a highly diverse group of people is moving in. This raises the question as to what constitutes participation. When I’m discussing how a cluster apartment I live in functions, I have to ask myself whether a migrant family that will move in later will see things in the same way. Within these processes, who is thinking for those who are not represented in the planning? MF Are we then seeing a new challenge for specialists in the planning and architectural fields? CT It’s important to get discussions going early on in the planning phase. In the case of the Zwicky-Süd project we tried to envisage how apartments could be joined together and communal spaces could be used by shared households. The resident population can take these ideas further. Our attitude is that people are mobile, not the walls. It’s about developing scenarios and their spatial and constructional realization. CH Yes, in the case of Kalkbreite the living-­ with-children group said: we’re moving into Kalkbreite, not into a particular apartment. Following the family phase there will be a switch to a smaller apartment. MS In the case of More than Housing there were thirty-five housing cooperative members involved from the beginning, all with very different backgrounds. They and many specialists contributed to the discussion within the framework of the competition. In 2008, prior to the competition, groups were formed that dealt intensively with the themes of ecology/sustainability, utilization, and economy. A thematic conference summarized all the results, and this provided the basis for the call for competition entries. And following the decision, the selected architectural teams had to work together in a dialog phase, which without any doubt was not an easy process. Then there were “echo chambers,” in which future residents as well as

the consulting specialists could contribute their points of view. The forms of participation changed repeatedly during the planning and construction phases. Different neighborhood groups have been operating for six months now, and they include people who to begin with did not know whether they would be allocated an apartment on the estate.

Broadly conceived input and participation processes in the planning phase can significantly change early concepts regarding the utilization of an estate, above all in the case of smaller projects. The desired apartment mix and thus the diversity of the resident population were often adapted after the competition phase — a challenge for the architectural firms and building commissions? Early inclusion of the future resident population of the estate helps to identify with and engage in the project. MF Following occupation, it is not only the people who were engaged in the planning phase that now shape the design of the estate and the coexistence within it. Especially in the case of the More than Housing project, many households have moved in that were not involved in the project beforehand. What sort of participatory forms have emerged in your different projects? MS In the More than Housing project we have the commons commission and neighborhood groups. The latter have to consist of at least five people, choose a name, and briefly formulate what they would like to do and the extent to which this will be a benefit for the quarter as a whole. The commons commission, which is composed of residents selected at the general meetings, then decides whether the group is to be recognized as such. A lot of things should be left open and not subject to regulation. We have endeavored to find simple structures. In a residential quarter made up of 1,400 people, you can’t know in advance how these structures will function in practice. At the moment our attitude

is: If a building community develops in the thirteen buildings, then great. Perhaps a family community will develop across three buildings, a card-playing community across five buildings, a music community across two buildings. Perhaps something quite different will emerge. We’ve decided to stay in the background, to observe and to accompany. However, it’s important that there should be generous access to space and money. We offer help when people ask for it. There are already several active neighborhood groups that have been working on concrete projects for six months and more. In the last three to four months there’s been a marked growth in interest, not only from future residents but from people in the neighborhood. People can also participate who perhaps face a language barrier or suffer from a degree of inhibition. The really decisive aspect of participation is recognition. There are many small and simple forms, but this is often forgotten. CT That’s true. People are quick to criticize such projects. It is very important to maintain a culture of appreciation. JA The right to a say in matters at Giesserei is very comprehensive. The management office looks after the administrative aspect; we — organized into working groups — have to do the rest. With a total of 240 people involved it would have been helpful to establish better structures at an earlier stage. This is evident in the rather unhappy history of paid part-time estate assistance, which was engaged early on but terminated soon afterward. A members’ meeting of the building association decided the staff were too expensive and not really needed. I think that’s a real shame, because I’m convinced we will need to have people fulfilling this function again later on. The goal was to learn from the mistakes of others. Now I realize that we are making the same mistakes. It’s a painful learning process.

The members’ meetings now take place every two months. Previously we met every month but these meetings often went on for a very long time and everyone got exhausted. Several working groups have fixed obligations, for example, the technical team, which has to look after ventilation, heating, etc. If we can’t find volunteers, then we have to come up with

108 109

another solution. We don’t worry too much if a stairwell isn’t that clean once in a while. We moved in just under two years ago. Un­for­tunately the system of “If I work less, I pay in money; if I work more, I get money” has been cut. Now when everyone has more or less done their obligatory hours by the end of the year they don’t want to clean the stairs or supervise the auditorium. There are strong prejudices against the possibility of earning a little money at Giesserei. But I’m almost certain that we will return to this system. CT I think it’s important that minijobs are generated. Cleaning the stairs can be an attractive and important task for some people in the building. CH All

the apartments in Kalkbreite have been occupied since August 2014. The monthly meeting of the residents’ committee involves all residents and those running businesses on the estate. The committee was already set up one year prior to occupation. Anyone with an idea about how to use the spaces open for different utilizations can seek out other interested parties and present the pro­ ject and a budget at the committee meeting. If the project is accepted, they can go ahead. The running of Kalkbreite is led by the so-­ called intermediaries (Drehscheibe), a group of five employees of the cooperative who answer to the board and the management office. The group is responsible for normal administrative tasks, janitorial duties, the leasing of the eleven guest rooms, and the seven meeting rooms, etc., and serves as the central point of contact for residents and business operators with concerns and questions. This setup can lead to conflicts. It’s not ­always clear who decides and who is authorized to decide. Recently a survey was conducted among residents and business operators regarding their expectations of the intermediaries. In return, the intermediaries were asked to evaluate their core tasks. These are quite normal initial difficulties, and they are probably the biggest pitfall of participation. It should always be clear who can decide what and when and what they can’t decide. But applying this principle in practice is one of the biggest challenges of the process. CT In Hardturm, the first Kraftwerk1 estate, over a period of fourteen years we have experienced in both a positive and negative sense how residents repeatedly come up with other

forms of organization and shift the focus of their engagement. Heizenholz, the second estate, is a much smaller project, consisting of only ninety-three people, including children. This has had a very positive effect on participation and individual attitudes. As soon as it was clear who was moving in, we organized a weekend in the mountains. There we discussed the most important issues and wrote down the results in the estate book. These agreements were then adopted at the inaugural meeting. The aim was to avoid meetings taken up by endless discussions. Now we have four building meetings per year, which only last two hours each. So it works pretty well. When something goes wrong and there’s conflict, then we deal with it. I think that in Heizen­holz and in Hardturm we’ve managed to develop a kind of culture of discussion. When it comes to partici­ patory processes, it’s important to prepare people for the situations they will be confronted with.

Forms and structures of codeter­ mination and participation are extremely diverse and dependent on, among other things, the size of the estate. Clearly defined participation and decision-making mechanisms, low inhibition thresholds, and recognition are important elements. Conflicts are part of the process, and the capacity to learn from mistakes made elsewhere is limited. MF In your projects residents can participate in the organization of the living situation and the community — in contrast to most renters elsewhere. How do you see the significance of participatory involvement in residential processes for processes of social participation and engagement in general? CH Participatory

processes generate a strong sense of identification with the project that never emerges when people simply move in some­ where. Residents say, “I live in Kalkbreite, not merely in an apartment.” This leads to community and solidarity.

CT

I’m repeatedly struck by the social com­ petences that develop in the course of such a res­idential project. Basic attitudes change.

CH The experience of being asked for your input triggers something. In discussions with others learning processes are initiated. In the beginning, half of the people had never even heard of a design plan. Subsequently there was intensive discussion about how such building projects come into being and why their realization takes several years. CT Precisely. You learn why the color of the kitchen is not the first issue that needs to be negotiated. Such projects also provide one of the few platforms for reflecting on residential forms. This can lead to changes in prevailing concepts of society and a growth in the acceptance of very different ways of living. MS Wider society can be very strongly influenced because participation can lead to the development of a feeling of being at home. People enter into discussions and get to know one another. Participation encourages people to join in the ongoing discussion and take ­stronger positions. JA Several people were fairly shy and retiring when they first came to us. Now they stand up in front of the members’ meeting and people listen to what they have to say. That’s an exciting development.

Successful participation processes can make an important contribution to identification with the estate, to learning processes, social tolerance, and self-confidence.

3 Trying Out Something New in Zürich: Community Living IN the Hunziker Areal Marie Antoinette Glaser and Nicola Hilti

116–118 Seven Days in Leutschenbach Susann Sitzler

119–123 “My Home” Children’s Workshop OKIDOKI: Nicoletta West and ­­Patricia ­­Collenberg

124–126 Apartment Types, Occupants and Applicants In the Hunziker Areal Corinna Heye and Sarah Fuchs

127–132

114 115

Trying Out Something New in Zürich: Community Living in the Hunziker Areal

Marie Antoinette Glaser and Nicola Hilti

Living in Zürich Zürich is currently in demand, and people want to live there. The city is investing a good deal in its infrastructure and offers a high quality of life. For this reason many people are moving there from other parts of Switzerland and abroad with the result that the city’s population is growing. What this means for the housing market is evident to anyone who has tried to find an apartment in Zürich. Finding good and affordably priced housing is difficult and takes up a great deal of time. The Zürich housing market has been under strain since the mid-1990s. In 2014 the vacancy rate was 0.22 percent.1 Finding living space in the city has become particularly difficult for people on average-to-low incomes. Rapidly rising property prices and rents — the latter rose by around 13 percent between 2004 and 2013 2 — are increasing the degree of social inequality, threatening networks that have developed over years in neighborhoods and housing communities, and increasing social segregation between urban districts. This is shown by ongoing discussions about “Seefeldization” — a reference to the upscale quarter of Seefeld on Lake Zürich and a term that is used to describe processes of gentrification in the districts of Riesbach, Industriequartier, and, most recently, Aussersihl.3 The city government has reacted to this situation (following a vote by Zürich residents on the adoption of an article into the municipal code) by making efforts to increase the proportion of reasonably priced housing in Zürich, to preserve housing for families and the elderly in particular, and to provide model eco-friendly housing in the lower-priced segment of the housing market.4 Thanks to the additional communal living space constructed by housing co­ operatives as well as by the city itself in recent years, families and other groups on lower incomes are now finding living in the City of Zürich attractive again. One indicator of this is the relative decline of single-person households since the turn of the millennium: Currently 45 percent of all households in Zürich are single-person, whereas in the 1990s more than every second household offi­ cially 5 had only one occupant.6 6 Zürich Statistics Office, “Haushalte in der Stadt Zürich 1960 bis 2013,” https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/content/prd/de/index/statistik/publikationen-angebote/publikationen/ webartikel/2014-09-29_Home-alone_ Einpersonenhaushalte-in-der-StadtZuerich.html, accessed January 30, 2015.

1 Zürich Statistics Office, “Deutlicher Anstieg der Leerwohnungszahl. Ergebnisse der Leerwohnungszählung vom 1. Juni 2014”: https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/prd/de/index/ ueber_das_departement/medien/medienmitteilungen/2014/august/140806a.html, accessed February 2, 2015. 2 Swiss Statistics Office, “Mietpreisindex, Entwicklung der Mietpreise für Wohnungen 2003–2013,” http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/ portal/de/index/themen/05/06/blank/ key/index.print.html, accessed November 13, 2014. 3 Sonja Lüthi, “Grossflächige Vergoldung,” in TEC21 no. 42 (October 2014): 27–30. Lüthi points to the massive increase in prices of rental apartments in District 5, ­amounting to 59 percent between 2001 and 2013. In Switzerland as a whole the increase over the same period was 11 percent. See ImmoMonitoring Wüest & Partner, Entwicklung der Angebotspreise für Mietwohnungen in der Stadt Zürich, 2014. 4 Referendum of November 27, 2011: Until 2050 nonprofit apartments should make up one-third of rental apartments in the city. 5 Statistics only partly reveal the ­reality. Many larger apartments registered as one-person households house at least one further additional occupant.

Diverse Residential Needs as Mirror of Social Change These changes in the housing market and individual residential situations are also an expression of a profound and rapid process of social change, the salient features of which include globalization and Europeanization; the individualization and pluralization of lifestyles; demographic change; the development of new information, communications, and transport technologies; increasing mobility requirements and needs; altered gender relations; and massive changes in the world of work. In far fewer cases biographies consist of the clearly defined life stages of childhood, working life, and old age. The flexibilization, differentiation, and pluralization of society are expanding both action options and action necessities. This change is being mirrored in the way people live: housing demands and needs are becoming more differentiated, which is resulting in new and diverse types of dwelling and household. Good apartments are ones that meet the requirements of these new household forms. These forms are often linked with certain phases of life and can change quickly, for example when a couple splits up or a patchwork family comes together. Moreover, household compositions are changing more dynamically not only in chronological but

also cyclical terms. This means that an apartment will be occupied by different numbers of people at different times, for example when children live by turns with one of their parents, young people temporarily live with their parents during an educational phase, or a grandmother moves in for a time. The lives of older urban residents are also showing an increasing dynamism and diversity, encompassing periods of significant change and reorientation. Making appropriate living space available for older people is one of the most urgent tasks facing our society. Currently, the population is undergoing a rapid and dual demographic aging process, that is, the number of older people is rising while the number of young people is declining.7 More people are reaching old age from generations whose backgrounds and lifestyles are clearly distinct from those that were there before them, for example the baby boomers born in the 1950s and 1960s.

7 François Höpflinger, “Die zweite Lebenshälfte. Lebensperiode im Wandel,” in Neues Wohnen in der zweiten Lebenshälfte, ed. Andreas Huber (Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 2008), 31–42.

Cooperative Living

8 Around a quarter of all apartments in Zürich belong to housing cooperatives and municipal foundations.

9 For more information on both projects, see http://www.kalkbreite.net and http://nena1.ch

New, good and affordable — with a bit of luck it is possible to find such apartments in Zürich. High property prices are making the idea of becoming a member of a nonprofit housing cooperative or founding one with like-minded people attractive for those looking for an affordable apartment in a good neighborhood.8 The use of a cost rent or nonprofit system, the construction of additional buildings on plots acquired decades ago so that the land price has remained low, and the rezoning of properties as building land by the municipality are all factors that enable cooperatives to charge lower rents per square meter than commercial land developers. Stringent cost controls and more economical approaches to the way buildings are restored and equipped also help to create affordable living space. Another important aspect is the fact that co­operative housing is not subject to speculation. The most recently established cooperatives in Zürich are Kalkbreite and NeNa1.9 Together with the Karthago, KraftWerk1, and Dreieck projects, they represent a continuation of the revival of the housing cooperative idea dating back to the youth unrest in Zürich in the 1980s. In the case of these collective housing projects, the social component also plays an important role. A part of the resident population has made a conscious decision to cultivate a form of neighborhood living based on solidarity that encompasses children, the elderly, migrants, and the less socially advantaged. Another important factor in this context is the occupancy guidelines that reduce the consumption per head of living space. Nevertheless, it should not be overlooked that a good number of the residents of cooperative housing estates have moved there above all in search of affordable accommodation. Although the concept of neighborhood is currently experiencing something of a boom, caution is advisable when it comes to idealized notions of a homogeneous social structure tied to a concrete location. Neighborhood is better understood as a multilayered, interlocational context of different actors that repeatedly produces itself anew.

116 117

More than Housing Seen against this background, More than Housing, a project planned from the outset as a quarter with a mixed residential population and — above all on the ground floors — a diverse mix of uses, is very much of its time. It is intended that the makeup of the residential population should reflect the distribution of different household forms in the canton of Zürich as a whole. The “more” in the name of the project refers to the community that is taking shape in the newly built, communally used interior and exterior spaces in the Hunziker Areal. The tenants of the More than Housing cooperative accept relatively small average living areas of 35 square meters per person (the average in the City of Zürich in the case of new buildings is 39 square meters in nonprofit apartments and 53 square meters in private rental and owner-occupied properties).10 The trade-off for More than Housing residents is more public space in the form of communally used roof terraces and exterior spaces, children’s playgrounds and car-free interim spaces and thoroughfares through the quarter. The spatial arrangement of the individual buildings is also designed to promote communal interaction by offering a mix of family apartments, studio apartments, large apartments that can be shared by eight or twelve people, supplementary rentable rooms, and spaces that can be adapted to different purposes. The variety of differently sized apartments and different layouts within a building or an estate, apartments with addable rooms, and new, so-called cluster or satellite apartments with several small private living areas (with their own kitchenettes and bathrooms) within communally usable areas are all a reaction to the new variety of forms of household and living that are emerging and the desire to live autonomously and at the same time within a community. More than Housing not only considers the elderly as an important target group as such but also cultivates cross-generational perspectives. The design of the new quarter takes into account the needs of older people and also promotes networking between the elderly and other generations on different levels: the infrastructure of outside areas (for example, benches, lighting, and signage), the provision of goods in the quarter to meet daily needs, and flexible offerings in terms of care and support.11

10 Zürich Statistics Office, Cornelia Schwierz and Alex Martinovits, Analysen Neubausiedlungen 2009–2012, 20, https://e-gov.stadt-zuerich.ch/epaper/ PRD/SSZ/Analysen/A_001_2014_output/ web/flipviewerxpress.html, accessed November 12, 2014.

11 Swiss Federal Office of Housing (BWO) (2013), mehr als wohnen. Von der Brache zum Stadtquartier. Entwicklungs- und Realisierungsprozess der ­gemeinnützigen Wohnsiedlung Hunziker Areal, in ZürichLeutschenbach, realisiert durch die Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen, Dokumentationsreport 2: Vorprojekt 2011 bis Spatenstich Sommer 2012, http:// www.mehralswohnen.ch/dokumente.html, accessed November 12, 2014.

Living Space for the Unfamiliar

12 Andreas Huber, “Der Wohnungsmarkt im Spannungsfeld von Demographie und Lebensphasen,” in idem.: Neues Wohnen in der zweiten Lebenshälfte (Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 2008), 47–63; here, 61.

13 Susanne Gysi, “Zwischen Lifestyle und Wohnbedarf,” in: Wohnen. Im Wechselspiel zwischen privat und öffent­ lich, ed. Marie Antoinette Glaser and Dietmar Eberle (Sulgen: Niggli Verlag, 2009), 10–23; here, 23.

The fundamental challenge for residential construction consists in the fact that social development is always more dynamic than changes in housing stock.12 For this reason there is a need for structures that allow for “that which is not conventional, not planned and not foreseen.”13 More than Housing has accepted the risks involved in creating such structures, creating a carefully conceived variety of living spaces designed to promote the emergence of a new community, one with the potential to set new yardsticks for collective living in neighborhoods and residential quarters. Moreover, it is continuing to explore new forms of habitation with satellite apartments. In view of current social developments and above all against the background of the strained housing market in the growth region of Zürich, it seems that for the initiators, architects, residents, and the rest of the city’s population, this risk is going to pay off.

Seven Days in Leutschenbach

Susann Sitzler

Antimatter (November 2014) Night is falling as I enter the Hunziker Areal for the first time. I imagine how it would be to come home here on the edge of northern Zürich at the end of a working day. The bus from the Oerlikon railway station needs less than ten minutes to get here. It drives past the parking station of the indoor stadium, past the glass boxes containing offices and lunch bars for businesspeople. At the Kehrichtverbrennung stop I can’t see at first where the new estate begins. I walk past industrial buildings and car dealerships until suddenly I find myself standing in front of a City of Zürich sign. This is where the city ends. If I continue I will get to the autobahn. So this is where the utopia of More than Housing begins. Two joggers emerge from the darkness and I find the sign of everyday life comforting. Then I see the illuminated glass tower on the Leutschenbach School and finally know where I am: on the rear side of the Hunziker Areal. Like cubes made of antimatter, the unlit buildings stand along the edge of the school lawn. Their new residents will move into them in the coming weeks. Cautiously I enter the dark, rain-wet site. The promising smell of damp cement hangs in the air. After about fifty meters the path curves sharply. I see more dark blocks to the back with the bizarrely high chimney of the waste incineration facility towering over them. They are so close to one another that a link is generated: urban energy. With their black window squares they suggest for a moment a side street in Gotham City, the Moloch of the comic universe in which superheroes do their deeds. How is it possible to fill 370 empty apartments with life at one stroke? The more than one thousand people who will be moving in at almost the same time will have to find out. Utopia (November 2014) In the sunlight of the following day I see that the buildings are almost finished. The windowpanes have already been installed. The rooms seem unusually tall. No building is like another. There are round, light blue corners, wooden siding, shutters with a Mediterranean touch, and French decorative balconies. In the middle, on a kind of village square, stands a huge cube made of concrete that looks like a fallout shelter with oversized air slots. More than Housing is the name of the cooperative that is aspiring to the utopia of a sustainable, socially and ecologically compatible city here. The way cooperatives build always reflects an ideal of their time. What we have here has nothing to do with the narrow, regular lines of the postwar cooperatives that characterize many parts of Zürich. This estate is clearly oriented to individuals. It offers scope for a broadly conceived set of living concepts, a place for people who have seen something of the world, perhaps have traveled and still do, people who are creative. Their horizon is wide enough such that they do not become depressed or feel blotted out living on the outskirts of the city in the shadow of a constantly smoking chimney. These are urban-periphery dwellings for people whose lifestyle has been shaped by the inner city. In one of the buildings the rooms are specially arranged to cater to shared households, with private spaces that are connected to a huge communal area. They are called satellite apartments and are so novel that the fire authorities had to develop a special approval process for them. “Are you still residing or already living?” was

118 119

an advertising slogan once used by a furniture retail chain. But what does a good life look like? How and where we live is closely linked with how we choose to answer this question. Facades (November 2014) Up until one or two decades ago, opting out in social terms meant being able to move away from the noisy inner city and if possible into a house of your own with a garden. In Switzerland “into the country” almost always means “into the agglomeration.” In the meantime, more people want to remain in the city. They are the ones for whom the Hunziker Areal has been conceived. It aims to be a piece of the city, an urban quarter. City means that different kinds of people live next to one another, each according to their own rules, and that as far as possible they leave each other in peace. Housing cooperative means the opposite. Residents receive a share and social equality for little money. In return, they have to obey rules that apply to everyone. This often leads to a situation in which some people pay particularly close attention to whether other people are really obeying these rules. It is only recently that cooperative is no longer automatically associated with conventional. But it has seldom been the case that a single cooperative has constructed an entire quarter based on its ideals. The urban character of the Hunziker Areal is generated by its vistas. Between the walls one continually sees other facades and other buildings. At some corners an impression is created of concrete canyons. These are visual experiences that one otherwise has in large cities. On many of the ground floors spaces for commerce have been installed; the new quarter is envisioned as becoming a lively mix of small sections. But initial leasing is proving difficult. Anyone thinking about opening a bar or a shop wants to know who his or her customers will be. A large proportion of the apartments here fit to the dreams of young families on low incomes. Commerce cannot live from them alone. On one facade I discover the first flower box, hanging lonely on a balcony rail. In it are a couple of thin, light green twigs and a dark, bare lump. Utopia needs confidence, and obviously someone here has enough of it to plant something in a flower box in November. Laundry roster (November 2014) Today the bus only comes by every twenty minutes. It’s Saturday. How does a family manage that has to bring home all their shopping by public transport? In order to get an apartment in the Hunziker Areal you either have to sign a document stating that you do not own a car or prove that you need a car for professional or health-related reasons. A young woman with a pram gets in with me. Her hair is covered by a scarf tied under her chin. She is talking animatedly with her child. Then a man comes along and gives her a thermos cup. The two of them have a lively discussion, which I do not understand. Now and again I hear a Zürich-German word. At the bus stop a passerby presses the door opener after the driver has turned on his indicator. “Do will no öpper mitfahre!” — You’ve got another passenger! — says the women wearing the scarf loudly in flawless Zürich-German, but the bus has already pulled into the passing traffic.

Over fifty people are waiting for the apartment viewing that has been organized today for anyone who is interested. One of the cooperative’s staff requests that those attending the viewing should not enter the apartments without putting the available blue plastic bags over their shoes. As a result we shuffle on blue Smurf feet through the rooms, respectfully observing the fittings. The rooms are surprisingly light, illuminated by high windows that are still without curtains and allow in the winter light. The long hallways in the apartments are tiled in an elegant checkerboard pattern. Facing the building stairway are windows reaching almost to the floor, which allow a view into the apartments. The bedrooms feature impressive wooden floors; the quadratic balconies are integrated into the layout such that they can serve as extra rooms in summer. In one of the spacious eat-in kitchens I see a familiar face: the woman with the headscarf from the bus. “Here we are again,” I say. She smiles. “We asked ourselves whether you were also on your way to the viewing,” she says. In December she, her husband, and young daughter will move in here. “We’re extremely happy!” she says, adding that I’m more than welcome to drop by for coffee and that her name is M. “Would you like to see the laundry?” asks our tour leader. Six or seven large washing machines with tumble dryers stand in a ground-level room with windows at the front. “We won’t have a laundry roster to begin with,” she says. The residents are supposed to organize themselves according to their own needs. This is certainly not a classic Swiss laundry, more like a launderette in a large city. Additional visitors keep joining the group, including several typical Zürich hipsters. I’m surprised to find them checking out a cooperative apartment here in Leutschenbach. Either they are also being affected by the housing shortage or Leutschenbach has the potential to become really cool. At Home (January 2015) When I visit the Hunziker Areal the next time, in January, M.’s building has come to life. Someone has hung up Tibetan prayer flags on the highest balcony, and in front of the building stands a covered motorbike. I shouldn’t be surprised by the packing boxes, says M. She is currently studying for her final university exams and will only have the time to set up the apartment properly once she’s finished. Her daughter sits beaming in her highchair at the kitchen table. “She loves having visitors,” says M, “And she can’t wait for the other children to move in.” In spring the first of many day care centers will open on the estate. Her husband came across More than Housing by accident. They had actually intended to stay in the inner city, but it is difficult to find something bigger there when your budget is tight. They were able to apply for three apartments in Leutschenbach but didn’t get any of them. “They offered us a much better one.” On her first visit she walked round the apartment asking herself “What’s the catch?” M laughs. She couldn’t believe that such a level of comfort was available at such a low rent. The cooperative is using a new computer program during the leasing process which was developed by a Zürich firm that has already worked with other sustainability-oriented cooperatives. The program monitors applications to ensure the right mix of residents is achieved. Most of the applicants are families with very young children. It will be a problem if all of them move out at the same time in twenty years. For this reason, attempts are being made to interest a greater number of older people, single people, single parents, and families with older

120 121

children. Of course it isn’t the computer program that decides who will get the apartments, but the people administering the project, who use the data as a guideline. M. suddenly asks whether it’s too warm for me. And, in fact it does feel like summer in the apartment. She finds this a bit much. Unfortunately you can’t set the temperature yourself. She certainly doesn’t want to sound ungrateful, but it seems illogical that you have to open the window so often because of the overheated rooms. Satellite (January 2015) More than Housing has committed itself to the goal of the 2,000-watt society. The character of the cooperative is very much shaped by the ideal of voluntary renunciation; the ecological footprint has dominated the planning of all the buildings. They are all built in accordance with the passive building standard, which, in the interest of the overall energy balance, does not allow for individual regulation of the temperature in the apartments. In our prosperous society low energy use at the individual level is a voluntary priority. No one saves electricity because it is too expensive. One saves in order to express an ideological conviction; one limits oneself in order to be one of the good people. During the planning phase, studies were undertaken that looked into the possibility of supplying the estate with organic vegetables grown by regional farmers. The possibility of making one’s own spaghetti was even considered. Both ideas did not prove economically viable. However, there is a residents’ association that grows vegetables on a piece of nearby land. Each member digs in the field for a few days a year and in return regularly receives a box of the most morally inoffensive vegetables in the city. In our prosperous society renunciation is a status symbol. One has to be able to afford it and to want to do it. Around twenty percent of the apartments are subsidized; however, it is not necessarily a question of money that determines whether people are prepared to renounce cheap, industrially produced food, full baths, and laundry softener. How do you get so many different people with different ideals and different incomes, people who have merely looked for and found an affordable apartment, to adopt a code of voluntary renunciation? Perhaps More than Housing will also find an answer to this question. Opera and Spaghetti (January 2015) There are more and more people out and about in the Hunziker Areal. A teen­ager lights a cigarette as he walks out of a building. Two mothers are assailed by a gang of colorfully clothed children. Two German students hurry to the bus. I’m walking around with Stephan, a documentary filmmaker who is moving in with his girlfriend in March. Over recent days I have often spied him disappearing around a corner with his camera. He is making a long-term documentary about the estate and already knows a lot of the residents. People repeatedly stop to talk to him: “Are you coming by later to film again?” People encounter one another here in a way that is different from finished residential quarters. Everyone is a pioneer and many people appear very interested in getting to know their neighbors as soon as possible.

“Ha!” Christoph calls out later and so unexpectedly that I wince. As an opera tenor he can’t resist the echo of a high, empty room with cement walls. He has come to Leutschenbach today especially to show me where the next phase of his life will begin. Christoph ended his singing career recently in order to realize a dream in the Hunziker Areal: an open salon with music and good food. He has already selected the equipment for the professional kitchen he will install in the lower section of the L-shaped premises. “That’s where I’ll prepare food during the day while musicians practice on the piano. In the evenings I’ll serve the food to my guests. Everyone is welcome, everyone will sit at one table, and each person can pay what he or she thinks is appropriate. And afterward perhaps I’ll sing.” The concert grand piano will stand in a part of the space where the ceiling is more than four meters high. “And every Wednesday I’m going to sing with the children from the quarter. Then they get a free plate of spaghetti and go home again.” Christoph Homberger believes in the new quarter. He has a lot of fans in the city who will follow him to the Hunziker Areal as guests. For him, North Zürich is like West Zürich once was. Referring to a trendy cultural center in the west of the city he points out that “in the beginning no one went to the Schiffbau either.” I find Christoph Homberger’s euphoria infectious. From the future salon to Hunzikerplatz at the heart of the estate, it is only a few steps. For the first time I notice how cleverly designed the window sills on the cement bunker are, and how promisingly the setting sun seems to glow in this part of Zürich. As I walk to the bus I reflect on the name More than Housing. More than housing is life. Not a bad name for a radical experiment. It has just begun.

122 123

“My Home” Children’s Workshop

CONCEPT AND SUPERVISION

OKIDOKI-Spielplatz für Kunst Nicoletta West Patricia Collenberg PARTICIPATING CHILDREN

Jahy, Johanna, Manuel, Alika, Jamila, Elif, Memet, Rodrigo, Lian, Noah, Joana, Cato, Meret, ­­F­­­­rederik, Emil, Maria

In the “My Home” workshop children engaged with the Hunziker Areal in its raw state in a tactile, investigative way. They were provided with clay and modeling material, with which they embarked on a kind of archaeological detective work. Using this material they were able to make impressions of interesting surfaces, structures, and objects. Subsequently the most interesting pieces were chosen and reinterpreted in the workshop’s “meeting point”. The children were also provided with small wooden boxes in which they could present, document, and label their finds in different ways. The result was a series of spatial objects exhibiting an archival or museological character, which the children used to assemble an organic tower block. At the end of the project the children gave their parents a tour of their invented residential landscape.

The safety warden supports the young builders during their investigation of the Hunziker Areal.

124 125

The children create a tower block featuring the objects they have created.

Apartment Types, Occupants and Applicants In the Hunziker Areal

Corinna Heye and Sarah Fuchs

How were the target groups defined? The intention was to create a “lively quarter where people like to live, work, and spend their free time” and it should be offered to people from “all social strata” (More than Housing mission statement). The cooperative did not set quotas for the makeup of its socially mixed residential population but did orient itself to the population structure of the Zürich canton. Although the cost rent system already guarantees relatively low rents, 80 of the 370 apartments are subsidized by loans or financing from the public authorities. These apartments can only be rented out to households that fulfill the conditions required for residential building subsidies with regard to income and assets. The focus was on coexistence and a mixed population: population strata excluded from the housing market were also to be actively invited. To achieve this end, the cooperative collaborated with different institutions. A total of just under 10 percent of all apartments were reserved: for the Züriwerk Foundation, which supports people with impairments, the Domicil Foundation, which finds apartments above all for families with immigrant backgrounds and restricted budgets, the WoKo Cooperative, which is oriented toward students and t­ eachers, and the ZKJ Foundation, which finds homes for children who have not been able to live with their families for a long period. A further guideline for the building cooperative is the idea of the 2,000watt society, and measures geared to achieving this aim include environmentally friendly construction methods and the requirement that the living surface per resident should not exceed 35 square meters. The utilization concept was developed by the building cooperative committee (building commission, executive board, and management board) and discussed with interested members of the public and the Utilization/Social Working Group (one of four working groups operating during the project phase in the context of different events before finally being approved by the executive board. What mix of apartments has been built? The apartments were made available for occupation over a relatively short period from November 2014 to May 2015, which meant that many apartments came onto the market at the same time. The types of apartment on offer included not only lofts and regular apartments of between 2 and 7.5 rooms, but also alternative residential possibilities such as live-in studios, large apartments for shared households, and satellite apartments. As a whole the combination of apartment types when compared to the city and the canton exhibits an above-average share of larger apartments with 4.5 or more rooms. Making up 37 percent of apartments in the Hunziker Areal, the proportion of 4.5-room apartments clearly exceeds that found in the city ­(21 percent) and canton (28 percent) of Zürich. Still larger apartments with 5.5 or more rooms make up 22 percent of the living spaces on the Hunziker Areal, a figure that corresponds to the cantonal average. By contrast, the share of smaller apartments with 1.5 to 3.5 rooms in the Hunziker Areal is comparatively low at 41 percent. Both the canton (51 percent) and the city (70 percent) of Zürich have significantly higher proportions in this category.

126 127

1 – 1.5 rooms

2 – 2.5 rooms

3 – 3.5 rooms

Apartment Types by Building Compared to the Canton and City of Zürich

4 – 4.5 rooms

Source: More than Housing co­operative, March 17, 2015; diagram: raumdaten GmbH

5 – 5.5 rooms

≥ 6 rooms

0%

5% Hunziker Areal

10 %

15 %

20 %

Canton of Zürich

25 %

30 %

35 %

40 %

City of Zürich

How were the apartments assigned? The initial leasing process for the Hunziker Areal — from advertising and registration to assessment of applications and obtaining references to allocation — took place exclusively online. For this purpose, More than Living used a tenant-data monitoring (MiMo) software package specially tailored to the Hunziker Areal by the firm eMonitor GmbH. The software facilitated an ongoing overview of the sociodemographic composition of the applicants and made often difficult decisions less arduous in the context of the initial leasing process. All apartments were initially advertised for rental at the same time, although newsletter subscribers were the very first prospective tenants to be informed. Because the number of responses remained relatively small to begin with, the individual apartment types were then additionally advertised in an online real estate portal with a link to the web tool. The process comprised two phases of several weeks each (registration windows for applications). As the occupation date drew closer, the cooperative advertised the apartments that were still free directly in the online real estate portal. The More than Housing website informed interested parties about the apartments and the housing cooperative’s regulations and provided an online application form on which applicants could list a maximum of three choices of apartment in order of priority. In accordance with the occupation regulations set out by More than Housing, prospective residents could only apply for apartments in which the number of individual rooms did not exceed the number of individuals making up the household. For instance, applications by single-­ person households were restricted to apartments with a maximum of 2.5 rooms. Where apartments were advertised individually only one additional application was permitted. Where required for online applications, laptops and personal or telephone support were made available.

Each correctly filled out application was assessed by two people according to predefined criteria. The decisions as to which applicants would be allocated apartments were made in so-called allocation meetings based on the assessments and taking into account the profile of the resident population that had been agreed on. The preparedness of applicants to become actively involved in the quarter and the cooperative was also taken into consideration. A proportionate relationship between household income and rental costs was an additional factor affecting the final decision, as was a preparedness to do without a car “in so far as this is not essential (work, health, etc)” (More than Housing information sheet). Who applied? When the data was analyzed (March 17, 2015) 970 valid applications for the Hunziker Areal had been lodged. Close to 430, that is, almost half the applications, came from one or two-person households, around 450 from households with children, and around 100 from shared households, associations, and other household types. When we compare the structure of the group of applicants with the structure of the reference population, it is above all the proportion of families (46 percent) that is significantly higher among the applicant group than corresponding proportions of the populations of the canton (29 percent) and City of Zürich (22 percent). This can in part be attributed to the number of 4.5-room apartments on offer, which had a decisive influence on who applied. Particularly notable, however, is the large proportion of applicants from singleparent families. The representation of single-person households among the applicants is below average. Making up around 22 percent, these applications compare with 39 percent of this household type in the canton and 51 percent in the City of Zürich. This can probably be explained by the rather small proportion of 1.5- to 2.5-room apartments on offer and the corresponding occupation regulations

Structure of Applicant Groups Compared to Population Structure in the Canton and City of Zürich Source: More than Housing cooperative, March 17, 2015; diagram: raumdaten GmbH

0%

128 129

10 %

20 %

30 %

40 %

50 %

60 %

in the Hunziker Areal. Here we find a discrepancy between supply and demand. The demand for smaller apartments exceeded the supply, whereas in the case of larger ones supply and demand more or less corresponded. A Preference for Small Apartments in Quiet Locations The measure of preference for a particular type of apartment used here is the number of applications that listed this type as their first choice. The early leasing date favored households with long-term plans for their living situation, such as those that included children of preschool age. Seen in absolute terms, around a third of the applicants preferred 4.5-room apartments. However, when we look at the number of applications per available apartment, the preference for 4.5- and 5.5-room apartments falls with only 2.3 applications per apartment. The more than five applications per apartment for the 2- to 2.5-room living units suggests that here demand significantly exceeded supply. Apartments with 6.5 and more rooms were by comparison significantly less popular. With an average of one application per apartment, the demand for the 26 apartments with 7.5 or more rooms was low. However, since most of these applications involved shared households, it needs to be borne in mind that for such living arrangements the leasing process is differently structured and presupposes a longer period of group formation. An analysis of the number of applications per apartment shows that, irrespective of the number of rooms, particular apartment types were chosen significantly more often than others. The apartments differ in terms of occupation date, surface area, layout, location, surroundings, orientation, the building floor in which they are located, rent, and possibly subsidization. However, hardly any of these categories was a clear preference among applicants. It was only in the

1 room 2 – 2.5 rooms 3 – 3.5 rooms 4.5 rooms

Number of Applications per Apartment by Apartment Size and Household Type

5.5 rooms

Source: More than Housing co­operative, March 17, 2015; diagram: raumdaten GmbH

6.5 rooms ≥ 7.5 rooms total 0.0 %

1.0 %

2.0 %

3.0 %

4.0 %

5.0 %

single-person household

parent with child(ren)

association

two-person household

shared household with child(ren)

other

couple with children

shared household

6.0 %

case of subsidized apartments that there was a larger demand overall. Half of the ten most preferred apartments are subsidized. There were fewer applications for the 3.5- to 4.5-room apartments on the busy Hagenholzstrasse. Here it is also evident that there was a particularly low demand for 4.5-room apartments with a typical noise-reduction approach (north–south orientation). At the time of analysis, almost 90 percent of the apartments in the Hunziker Areal had been allocated. Of the apartments that had been let there, there were clear differences in the rental rate with regard to size. Only 3 percent of the smaller apartments containing 1 to 3.5 rooms were still empty, whereas 20 percent of 4.5-room and 10 percent of the 5.5-room apartments had not yet been leased. However, this can be explained by a “rental stop” on families with small children, which the cooperative decided to implement based on the rental monitoring process, accepting short-term vacancies to avoid major imbalances in the mix of the resident population and overloading the school infrastructure. At almost a quarter of available leases, the relatively high proportion of vacant apartments with 7.5 or more rooms shows that more time and effort are needed to rent out spaces for new forms of residential living. The cooperative saw one of its tasks as offering the broadest possible range of typologies of communal living as a way of providing statistical data over the coming years pertaining to these forms of residential living. The economic risk involved was deemed to be small, since the proximity of universities and other educational facilities meant that in cases of low demand more apartments could be offered to students via the WoKo Student Housing Cooperative. Future Residents of the Hunziker Areal An analysis of the future makeup of the residential population based on the current rental situation shows that in particular the number of children will be well above average in comparison to reference figures for the city and canton of Zürich. At present, the age group made up of residents under fifteen com­prises 24 percent of all those living in the Hunziker Areal. In addition, the proportion of young adults aged between twenty and thirty-nine is set to rise to 48 percent, thereby clearly exceeding the reference figures for the canton (29 percent) and the city (35 percent). The proportion of young families among the initial applicants was already very high. Despite the targeted allocation of apartments, it has not been possible to implement an age structure comparable with the cantonal population. As a result, the population of the Hunziker Areal will in future include a significantly lower proportion of older people than the canton as a whole. This can in part be attributed to the mix of apartment types. Older people live predominantly in one- and two-person households, the proportion of which in the Hunziker Areal is relatively small. Moreover, among apartment seekers, older people are underrepresented and currently still less open to alternative forms of residential living, with the result that less older people have applied for larger and satellite apartments. Since it is mainly family apartments with 4.5 rooms and large apartments for shared households that have as yet not been leased, it can be assumed that in future the proportion of children and young people living on the estate will rise further. The analysis of the initial leasing process undertaken by More than Housing shows that reaching different target groups and thereby achieving the desired residential population structure depend above all on the mix of apartment types on offer. This is also due to the fact that the distribution of house130 131

0–4

5–9

10 – 14

15 – 19

20 – 29

30 – 39

Structure of the Hunziker Areal Residential Population by Age Source: More than Housing cooperative, March 17, 2015; diagram: raumdaten GmbH

40 – 49

50 – 64

65 – 79

≥ 80

0%

5% Hunziker Areal

10 % Canton of Zürich

15 %

20 %

25 %

City of Zürich

holds in the complex is already prescribed by the occupation regulations. The wide range of apartment types has initially led to a more diverse residential population than found on other residential estates. However, this diversity has not been achieved to a degree that would make the social structure of More than Housing similar to that of the city as a whole. The residential population is young and has an above-average number of children. In the further development of the cooperative, the online leasing tool can continue to play an important role as a steering instrument in the context of residents’ changing apartments. The tool reflects the sociodemographic mix of the population and can generate criteria for re-leasing. Once the first More than Housing generation has aged and reached the postfamily phase, it will become evident whether the combination of apartment types offers enough options for change and reorientation.

4 Is More than Housing Also a Model Energy Concept? Werner Waldhauser Interview with Christian Huggenberg

138–140 Are You Still Residing or Already Living? Robert Kaltenbrunner

141–145

An economy for the society, not a society for the economy… Ursula Baus

146–150 On a Low-tech Path to the 2,000-Watt Society Andreas Hofer und Manuel Pestalozzi

151–154 Socially Integrative: The Communal Garden in the Hunziker Quarter Doris Tausendpfund

155–159

136 137

Is More than Housing Also a Model Energy Concept? Text and Interview

Christian Huggenberg CH Werner Waldhauser WW

How did you get involved with the More than Housing project? WW

Interview conducted in autumn 2014 with Christian Huggenberg and Werner Waldhauser, HVAC engineer HTL/SIA and president of the ­governing board of Waldhauser+Hermann Basel

Werner Waldhauser was called in by the planners of the Hunziker Areal to advise them on the development of an energy concept. The search for a sensible concept triggered a debate about standards, their limits, and the role of the people who would ultimately live in the buildings. In its building permit agreement the cooperative obligated itself to apply the Minergie-P-Eco standard or a comparable energy-use standard for the entire site.

At my first meeting with the project leaders I was asked a lot of questions. These dealt not so much with detailed knowledge as with my general outlook on life. I liked this approach and so at the end of our first discussion I said to the architects who were there that I was very interested in the project. However, my condition for becoming involved was that the project would attain the Minergie energy standard although not necessarily Minergie certification (which requires mechanical ventilation). There was majority agreement on this point. How would you describe your role in the project?

WW

My first task was to talk with the people involved about what was actually relevant in the case of residential building from a technical services viewpoint. Here it was above all important to identify what heating possibilities were available and how a ventilation system for buildings over such a large area might look. So a central question was whether the use of natural ventilation for buildings in a quiet location would be approved by the clients. I then looked into all the consequences in terms of energy of all imaginable possibilities and drew up a project decision paper. Can you give me an example?

WW For example, proof that the energy used for natural ventilation (assuming sensible ventilating) is lower than that required for mechanical ven­ tilation, taking into account both gray and operating energy. If you can prove this, then there is no cogent argument for the necessity of a ventilation system — including with regard to air quality.

Nevertheless, there is a risk when using natural ventilation that there are residents who leave their windows open for hours in winter as well. WW

Of course there is. But the residents won’t keep doing it because the heating capacity won’t compensate for the substantial loss of heat and they will not be able to keep the room temperature stable. This is why it’s important to inform residents about how to heat properly. We have to make people think — above all schoolchildren.

So you think it’s better to show schoolchildren when to open and close windows manually than to use mechanical ventilation?

a little above the Minergie-P standard and this needs to be compensated for by more suitable buildings in order to get the overall balance right.

WW

But the end result can only be ascertained after several years.

Yes. Take the example of a primary school for which I was a consultant. The primary concern of the municipality is whether a new school building receives a Minergie certification. But I don’t see why a school surrounded by greenery should need a mechanical ventilation system. Apart from closed rooms — such as sports changing rooms and shower areas — there is no more effective form of ventilation than fully opening windows during breaks. And why then isn’t it common practice to simply open windows in schools during breaks? Because teachers don’t want to take responsibility for opening and closing windows. In this context, it is also important to inform teachers and pupils and explain to them why in such cases the current standard is not reached with mechanical ventilation.

WW

Yes, and that will not be easy. For the time being, we are of course only talking about theoretical values. Energy use not only depends on the building facade but also on users’ behavior, which can result in deviations of +/− 40 percent from projected levels. In addition, today we assume that the energy consumption for heating water can be 20 percent higher than for heating rooms. You were on the board of Minergie in Switzerland. How does that fit with your critique of certification?

WW

Were those responsible for the More than Living project immediately in agreement with you when you said that you were not interested in gaining certification? Of course. One of the fundamental principles of the project is to question existing standards and to try out new — where possible, even better — energy solutions. The cooperative was skeptical about high-tech solutions and was looking for simpler systems. Its members were also ready to take certain risks and to bet on the active participation of residents.

WW

I have nothing against Minergie certification as such. What disturbed me was the obligation to install a mechanical ventilation system. Recommending such a system is fine, but it should not be a prescribed condition. I don’t think that’s the right way to go about things. I have the same opinion about the increasing enshrinement in law of technical standards and the fact that certain privileges such as a high degree of utilization are dependent on the maintenance of certification.

WW

But a ventilation system with heat recovery saves energy lost by manual ventilation, doesn’t it? WW

That’s true. However, as a rule too much air is circulated, because in centralized residential ventilation facilities the ventilation has to operate 24 hours a day 365 days a year, which leads to unnecessary electricity consumption.

What other factors played a role? Ww

It was very important to think carefully about the facades; they are not the same on all buildings. In the case of the insulating concrete building designed by Pool Architekten, for example, it was necessary to consider the comparatively poor insulation value in relation to the gray energy consumption and the simple facade construction. It is not only the energy needs generated by the occupation of a building that come into consideration but also the energy used to build and clean up a building. The energy needs of an insulating concrete building are

138 139

You also say that it makes little sense to insulate all old buildings. WW

We are seeing an increasing number of regulations stating that all old buildings must be insulated. I have to ask myself, what are we doing with all the excess heat being generated by waste incineration, computer centers, etc? At some point we have to extend distance-heating networks and shut down existing heating-pump and wood-heating facilities. With regard to gray energy, is such expenditure for construction, ­removal of old systems, facade renovation, etc

sensible when weighed against the energy ­savings? Such regulations should apply to areas other than district-heating systems using waste heat from other facilities. There are several district heating sources nearby the Hunziker Areal. One of them is being used. Is everything being done the right way in this respect? WW

Yes. Although heat is not being drawn from the Hagenholz waste-incineration facility as originally suggested; a nearby computing center is being used instead. Are you satisfied with the result?

WW Not

one hundred percent. Awarding the contract to only one planner for all thirteen buildings was not an optimal solution in my view due to the overload risk. In addition, the avoidance of mechanical ventilation was not pursued very enthusiastically. When you compare More than Housing with other projects, how do you rate it?

WW

As an outstanding example — already in the sense of how the project was conducted; and also in the way residents for the estate are now being found. People are being informed.

Wouldn’t it be better to give a building certification only when it can be proved that the building has actually earned it? WW

Of course. No one submits a report in which the goals that are known and required have not been achieved. Everyone involved agreed on this from the beginning — both the architects and the clients. How did the planners proceed in order to ensure that the relevant energy standards would ultimately be met?

WW

This was the work of the planners who have to constantly assess and where necessary optimize the project. Here, of course, it is a disadvantage when a project is not geared to binding standards. It takes considerable effort to maintain a grip on the entire system.

How big an influence does heat generation have on the energy performance of buildings? WW

There are many concepts of heat generation and each of them has advantages and ­disadvantages. The most appropriate concept needs to be applied to each particular location and the available energy sources, which is unfortunately not always the case. The stupidest ­approach is always to favor a single concept. We cannot meet our energy needs with only wood or eco-electricity, geothermal heat, solar energy, oil, gas, or coal. We will always — or at least for the next decades — be reliant on all sources of energy and will therefore have to apply different concepts in different places.

Are You Still Residing or Already Living?

Robert Kaltenbrunner

New Residential Quarters between Lifestyle Product and Sustainable Urban Component It is a well-known fact that in large, growing German cities such as Munich, Berlin, and Frankfurt, affordable living space is scarce. Moreover, since the need for accommodation is increasing with the number of residents, low-income households in particular are being gradually forced out of the booming centers. To a certain degree this problem is being exacerbated by the so-called energy turnaround, the shift in German energy policy that is aiming to reduce energy needs and increase the decentralized generation of renewable energies — changes that are making the renovation of building stock urgently necessary. However, often renovations in the name of energy savings are used as a smokescreen for luxury upgrades that promote gentrification. And additional challenge is being posed by the demographic transformation of an aging society. If we take the “three pillars” model of sustainability as our frame of reference, we have to acknowledge that in recent years the development of sustainable architecture has seen considerable progress in the areas of economy and environment. By contrast, development in terms of social parameters has progressed to nowhere near the same degree. In cities where there is no consensus (anymore) regarding the need for a substantial proportion of nonprofit housing construction questionable developments are becoming evident. Things become particularly problematic when public welfare aspects are ignored in housing construction in favor of visual impressions and urban-spatial staging, as is becoming increasingly the case in Germany. Precisely because social sustainability is shaped by a high degree of soft factors that are difficult to measure, it is more frequently asserted than realized. What can be observed in concrete terms? Project developers and housing construction firms react to the wishes of their clientele but they also influence and steer them. A high-earning “creative class” is interested in housing that is clearly distinguishable from mass products and seeks a neighborhood environment that corresponds to its mostly urban lifestyle. LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) and bobos (bohemian bourgeois) are happy to pay for just the right fit in this respect. And it is in this context that investors find their creativity challenged: What can they offer these clients to ensure that they do not disappear with their capital into the city’s modernized but authentically evolved hip neighborhoods? Although — or precisely because — the urban quarter is a rather informal spatial category, it is one that implies a strong connection to the life world of its residents, and for this reason the quarter — in the sense of neighborhood — has long become one of the most important levels of intervention, whether in the case of Hamburg’s “stepchild” Veddel, Munich’s Ackermannbogen or at Basel’s Novartis Campus. Now the real estate industry is also starting to operate on this scale. It is no longer individual buildings and their own portfolios that real estate entrepreneurs are targeting but the entire quarter, which serves as a kind of matrix between the buildings and is sometimes the unique selling point of the housing on offer.

140 141

At the same time, we live in a time of innumerable postmodern lifestyles. This pluralization has reached a magnitude that would have been inconceivable in the Fordist phase of mass production and consumption, between the row house and the Volkswagen Beetle. The “new complexity,” as Jürgen Habermas called it in 1985, is, however, certainly not beyond comprehension, which is particularly evident in the fact that more recent types of housing-market analysis are as a rule based on the examination of different lifestyle groups and their residential preferences. A recent survey of 30,000 households in Bremen, for example, revealed not only the need for 14,000 dwellings but also identified ten different groups based on lifestyles and the kind of quality they demand. Combining the findings of this study with the relevant social data and the typology of residential quarters enables us to determine which groups are pushing their way into which locations and to what degree. This is a double-edged sword in the sense that in practice investors use the data to find out where they can achieve the highest margins with their well-heeled clientele. This kind of precise information about localities is increasingly in demand and is being disseminated by real ­estate associations. We have — hopefully — not yet reached the stage of the completely analyzable real estate client or resident, but a new transparency is facilitating the identification of lifestyle clusters that can be translated into viable target groups. This has started an unprecedented, systematic commodification of the development of residential quarters. The stakeholders here are not concerned with bettering the world but rather with constantly increasing the efficacy of invested capital. Rather than the production of housing in large numbers over large areas that characterized the Wilhelminian period, the housing now being created is more fragmented, flexible, and individual. What is being marketed is not only an apartment or a house but an environment that suits a lifestyle, in effect the entire surrounding quarter. The “new residing” is often sold with the promise that the apartment or house concerned is linked with a certain — usually somehow “urban” and “individual” — lifestyle, one that the developer does everything possible to guarantee. The marketing of new inner-city luxury living almost always is about the promise of combining the “urban” (in the form of the multifarious offerings of the city) and the “secured” (in the form of a private domesticity than extends beyond the apartment). Thus, we find the “Marthashof” quarter in the Berlin district of Mitte being marketed by the developer Stofanel with the suggestive slogan “Urban Village.” Directed at postmaterial, international target groups — the firm’s website is in German, English, and Italian — the marketing material simultaneously refers to a “holistic philosophy”, an “ecological standard”, and “functionality” as well as to a neighborhood environment that is marked by “free space and a feeling of security” and by “safety and good neighborliness.” The project is thus directed at a global middle to upper class that has geared its way of life to sustainability, cultivates a salutiferous orientation, preferably with a high degree of domestic comfort and urbanity, and is holding ready the necessary cash — a very specific “quarter” for a very specific target group and, by the way, a complete marketing success. The CA Immo Deutschland, a real estate venture founded using the assets acquired from German National Railways and today one of the country’s most important developers of inner-city properties, already began to use “urbanity”

as a key term in its marketing some time ago: “Our most important product is urbanity. What is urbanity? For some it means being able to experience a feeling of excitement, pulsating life, and the confrontation with interesting scenarios and diverse encounters every day. For others it means the confluence of physical proximity and social distance in the same place.” However, no city consists completely of hip, high-gloss urbanity. The fact that behind this facade real conflicts are emerging was recently made clear in the “Choriner Höfe” in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, where recently completed luxury apartments were targeted by vandals in mid-July 2013, who pelted the building with red paint and smashed windows with cobble stones. “We don’t want your luxury ghettos anymore,” read a statement published on the Internet by the perpetrators. The project’s developers, Diamona and Harnisch, countered by pointing out that they had merely adopted the precepts of “the fine art of living,” reinterpreted typical Berlin tenement architecture, and shaped the inner area of the different buildings with multiply fragmented courtyards. However, the corporate philosophy as described on their homepage seems to aim for something bigger: “We are offering you a range of high-quality, first-class residences in an extra­ ordinary location. This is a place of harmony between creative living and working. Our aim is to uniquely combine an extraordinary quality of life with sophisticated architecture. Live in style within silence while also sensing the pulse of the metropolis.” An ideal world in which every contradiction is harmoniously smoothed out. The Interboden group proceeds even more systematically for instance, in Düsseldorf, where it is building modular neighborhoods based on emotionalized components. Its basic idea entails responding to the postmodern diversity of lifestyles (and thus target groups) with a relatively flexible mosaic of “lifeworld” components — creating the “optimal” range of housing. The “urban quarter” character is even guaranteed by the firm’s own quality standard and cultivated as a unique selling point. Rather than the dwelling itself, the focus is on architectural diversity, the spirit of place, services in the quarter, the neighborhood, and social networks. The community that is supposed to form in the new, shared environment is included in the price and in the marketing mix. The fact that the group has even trademarked the term “life worlds” (Lebens­ welten) puts the icing on the cake. Putting it kindly, these are all intelligent strategies for marketing housing and thereby making a profit. What is new here is the fact that lifestyles are being instrumentalized on a comparatively large scale as a means of realizing economic ends. The problem lies in the “complex”: the structural format that links a building, the open space around it, and the provision of building services into an operating unit. In this context, monocultures of all kinds flourish; here, homogeneity becomes a constraint. By contrast, areas structured in small sections permeated by public spaces are developable. In a city with a granular structure and a finely meshed network of public thoroughfares, change is constant. Concentrations of all types of cultural and economic activity develop that move, change, and disappear while elsewhere something emerges that we could never have expected. Of course, no investor’s project offers this kind of open-endedness.

142 143

While the situations in Germany and Switzerland are not directly comparable, both cases raise the question of what developmental alternatives are available. The answers can only be found by approaching the problem on a fundamental level. If the process of progressive market expansion in the housing sphere is to be halted, communal steering instruments are indispensable. One example is the Munich model of “socially responsible land management,” whereby building land is made available below current market value and thus at a favorable purchase price to facilitate the formation of socially graduated housing ownership. In this way investment is not hindered and at the same time the client base is broadened at the lower-income end of the social spectrum — very much in keeping with diverse, lively, mixed residential quarters that are integrated in the wider urban environment. Another approach involves the formation of (and municipal support for) building cooperatives — which after all can generate added value compared with the real estate industry, since as a rule they build using their own, carefully administered money with an awareness of social integration and a view to durability, which in turn encourages the desire to own one’s own home. Currently, the guidelines laid down by respective urban-development policies are therefore of decisive significance. These are generally favorable in Zürich, where targeted land policies and residential construction cooperatives play an important role in the housing sector. This of course does not mean that every project is a good one. But when, on the one hand, building rights for plots are awarded to cooperatives and, on the other, the initiators and executors have ambition, develop viable visions, and are possessed of both the power to convince and to have stamina, then a quarter can emerge that not only profits from the surrounding city but also gives it something back. This is precisely what is happening on the former site of the Hunziker cement factory in the Zürich suburb of Leutschenbach. The mixed residential quarter being realized here by the building cooperative with the programmatic name More than Housing in collaboration with the City of Zürich is a highly convincing model: an intensive phase of orientation and consolidation interweaving constructional and social aspects; the firm orientation to principles of sustainability as embodied in the idea of the 2,000-watt society; an open architectural competition, the jury for which included members of the cooperative; the way the new quarter is integrated into its urban context; the range of possible residential forms; the integration of commercial activity; the external differences between the individual buildings within a nevertheless coherent overall structural appearance; the self-confident, urban structural form, free of nostalgic coziness yet also free of a grandstanding addiction to novelty. This quarter can certainly be understood as a built statement: Just as social cohesiveness is repeatedly —  and rightly — cited as a precondition for the future viability of society, the way people live also represents a central component of the quality of life, to which architecture can make a valuable contribution. What has been realized in the Hunziker Areal is not a complex that links buildings, squares, and thoroughfares for the sake of profit into a self-contained operating unit. What we see here, rather, is an open and interacting system. It provides an exemplary illustration of the fact that particularly in the field of housing construction, the provision of resource-saving, energy-efficient, lasting,

and economically optimized architecture is also always about social intermixture, the possibilities of communication and integration, participation and stability. Significant here is also the fact that the development of the project was a step-bystep process, that sustainability in this case was not based on a perfect, predefined plan but developed in an ongoing dialog. This meant that the traditional approach to such undertakings was, as it were, stood on its head, since normally the intended result of a project is formulated in the planning phase and then, in a second step, solutions are formulated as to how it can be achieved. Here, the initial question was how a developmental dynamic could unfold without immediately defining an ideal end result. The principle of process orientation and open, cooperative dialog was also systematically applied to the technical aspects of the project. Rather than tying it to the requirements of a fixed building and energy standard (such as the Minergie-P-Eco standard), such standards were used as a general framework within which the project could chart its own path, for instance, by sensibly deviating from certain standards and making compromises at the level of individual buildings in order to achieve an ultimately acceptable goal at the level of the quarter as a whole. This is an open, experimental arrangement intended to prove that sustainability can also be achieved with low-tech approaches. Criteria such as process quality, spatial design, and building technical quality contribute to increasing the feel-good factor and thus to stabilizing a socially high-quality neighborhood structure. However, it is all but impossible to comprehend in quantitative terms the aspects of social sustainability exerting an influence on the coexistence of residents. Rather, it is the considered, targetgroup-focused concept and ongoing support guiding the project that is playing a central role in its success. All this is in sharp contrast to the kind of residential quarter development going on in major German cities. Although these developments simulate a kind of “romantic urbanity,” they are prime examples of the fundamental attitude of developers and real estate firms, which, with an explicit disinterest in urban identity, are ultimately promoting social segregation and urban alignment and constricting spheres of possibility with their obstinate implementation of tech­ nical specifications. By contrast, More than Housing — with a keen awareness of costs — is maintaining scope for experimentation and unconventional ideas. The building cooperative is endeavoring to formulate a sustainable market strategy for a type of housing construction that builds community. It is accordingly using all prevailing framework requirements in the sense that it is interpreting and extending them. Here, we are not seeing the creation of concrete envelopes for individual, pseudo-­ urban lifestyle preferences but rather the possibilities of architecture becoming a new binding agent within the social structure. And because the development of residential quarters entails moving, as Robert Musil wrote, in an “enduring container of houses, laws, dictates, and long-standing traditions,” such exemplary projects are obviously needed as components of a city that is both worth living in and sustainable.

144 145

An economy for the society, not a society for the economy “It’s going to be a tight squeeze” was the title of a recent article in the Süd­ deutsche Zeitung on the topic of urban dwelling.1 But when the opulent residential space demanded by people in one of the wealthiest regions on Earth is called a “tight squeeze,” it illustrates a problem that was addressed by the Zürich project More than Housing, and which is considered here in an economic context. In Germany after World War II, the average individual occupied a space measuring 10 square meters; in 2014, the figure was 47.2 At 45 square meters,3 the current Swiss average is only slightly lower. To begin with, this high average serves as an index that we Central Europeans are living above our means. The social drama of this statistic, however, becomes evident when it is itemized in concrete terms: some people occupy between 5 and 9 square meters, while others stroll about in private spaces measuring 150 to 500 square meters. Some people live in the Lusatian provinces, others in virtually unoccupied Swiss mountain valleys, and still others in central Düsseldorf or Zürich. Some enjoy views of the Elbe River, others only indirect light from a rear courtyard. Some live on the street, some shuttle between multiple residences. All, we can assume, live under diverse financial circumstances. In September 2014 the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung summarized a report about billionaires compiled by the major Swiss bank UBS and the data provider Wealth X: “The typical millionaire is 63 years old, male, married, made his money in the financial industry, is worth 3.1 billion dollars, and owns four homes, each worth on average 23.5 million dollars — but does not necessarily hold an academic title.” Seven hundred and seventy-five billionaires come from Europe, most of them from Moscow, London, and Istanbul.4 At the other extreme: in a plebiscite in 2014, 77 percent of Swiss voters rejected an increase of the minimum wage to €18.50 (in Germany, it is now €8.50).

Ursula Baus

1 Paul-Philipp Hanske, “Es wird eng. Als große Familie in der Stadt wohnen?,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 27–28, 2014, 55

2 Statistisches Bundesamt. 3 Bundesamt für Wohnungswesen, Lage und Entwicklungstendenzen im Wohnungswesen, May 13, 2015.

4 Judith Lembke, “Mehr Milliardäre als jemals zuvor,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, http://www.faz.net/aktuell/finanzen/meine-finanzen/sparen-und-geld-anlegen/nachrichten/ es-gibt-mehr-milliardaere-als-jemals-zuvor-13158818.html (accessed August 30, 2015).

Habitation and Economics

5 www.bbsr.bund.de

Entire generations of architects and builders have been preoccupied with the question of how all members of society can be offered acceptable housing conditions. Immediately after the destruction of World War II, the improvement of living conditions was taken up as a task for society as a whole, one that had to be faced with a sense of responsibility — with ambition and with results that can be characterized in the history of residential construction by their enormous variety. A disconcerting development has however been observable in recent years. In Germany, the federal government, the states, and the municipalities are selling off to private investors the most important instruments they possess when it comes to providing for the common good — and that includes adequate dwellings for all citizens, that is, land, property, and apartment buildings. They are doing so not least of all to get the budgets of public authorities in order. From 1999 until mid-2014, more than one million apartments — more than 30 percent of the total — were sold off.5 Social housing development came more or less to a halt. When formerly public properties and apartments enter circulation as privately owned assets, basic premises have been altered: building activity is no longer oriented toward the public welfare; instead, prices are controlled by the interests of the real estate industry in a market segment where investors, fund managers, and other profiteers keep an eye on rates of return. Public spending is dealt a

bad card when it comes to satisfying the social needs of residents. Concretely, this means that government funds are used to offset the difference between affordable and commercially available rents. This offset flows toward the private real estate industry in the form of subsidies. In Germany in 2012 alone, the federal government, the states, and municipalities subsidized the construction and real estate industry to the tune of more than €20 billion through support to infrastructure and individuals. The Real Estate Industry and the Monetary Economy Currently, the real estate industry is a particularly lucrative branch of the money economy, one whose share of the total value added in Germany — as in Switzerland — is now around 20 percent.6 When financial and currency crises take their course, as in the past seven years, this actually benefits the real estate industry by virtue of its stability. This is because financial models based on fixed interest rates and equity ratios reveal real estate in Germany and Switzerland as a largely crisis-proof form of investment. Particularly since the rental sector in these countries (differently than, for example, in the US) prevents high private indebtedness by residents, because they — to come full circle — are supported by various support and subsidy programs, as mentioned above. This interdependency between residential development and private economic interests works to the detriment of those who must make demands on the housing market but lack sufficient funds. Here, support to ­individuals — for example, through basic security allowances and housing assistance — represents a major cost factor; infrastructural support has a close connection to architecture in areas such as energy rehabilitation, the protection of histo­rical monuments, and accessibility. All of this money ends up in the private sector, and as long as this is the case, the market will not adapt to the requirements of public welfare. Only politics, with its control mechanisms, has the capacity to transform the housing industry through funding strategies.

6 Peter Staub and Heinz Rütter, Die volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung der Immobilienwirtschaft der Schweiz (Zürich: HEV, 2014).

Survival Strategy Instead of Economic Theory If things are to change, the economy must concern itself with other socially relevant developments. That this virtually never happens is traceable to a far-reaching lack of theory — not to be confused with a lack of concepts. Virtually no other discipline is as theory-deficient as economics. In widespread economic doctrines, concepts and strategies serve primarily to maintain the functionality of existing systems and dogmas — and hence cannot be regarded as theory in the sense of the critique of systems. In the history of the discipline, whose origins can be traced back to the late eighteenth century, the requirements of commerce and exchange are oriented exclusively toward individual interests — not in the sense of the comprehensive freedom and dignity of the individual, but instead primarily in his striving for power, influence, and prosperity. Personal enrichment is recognized as the core aim of economic activity, which requires no theory of social interests as a whole as long as it continues to function. Against this background, it was only in the late nineteenth century that the view emerged (in the works of Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, and Karl Marx) that for society to function, politicians needed to intervene in and regulate the commercial activities of the profit-oriented economy.

146 147

The privatization of profits and the socialization of losses: as a pragmatic principle of action, this motto characterizes all types of capitalism that rely upon growth. That today, fewer individuals worldwide own more of the total is the logical consequence. Currently, only a few isolated critics of capitalism try to subvert existing economic doctrine — one gladly listens to Jeremy Rifkin, for example, who wins awards and prizes, but what actually changes? The world economic crisis of 1929, along with all of the more-or-less severe subsequent crises that have continued up to the present, testify to the inadequacy of hitherto existing abstract economic models, which are, however, still taught at universities. In their unenlightened helplessness, business representatives have repeated the dogmatic postulate of the “normative force of the factual,” which culminates for many governments in a recognition of the “­systemic importance of the banks.” The weaknesses and collapse of noncapitalist systems reveal the societal weaknesses of the capitalist economic system all the more clearly the more blatantly human needs disallowed by the system raise their demands globally. Meanwhile, the discipline of economics has never consistently analyzed the crises affecting its favored model, nor called the ideology of growth seriously into question — although Dennis Meadows demonstrated the Limits to Growth as early as 1972, and despite the fact we are all well aware of the devastating impact of growth on both humans and nature. Which Means for Building...

7 www.destatis.de

That the high-end housing development of the real estate industry avoids risks related to structure, floor plans, and forms, particularly in the realm of offerings for collective living, is a consequence of a lack of theory and of the pragmatics of economic survival. Particularly since in Germany, for example, circa 99 percent of the housing market is in private hands, and only a pitiful 1 percent in the sphere of public competence.7 In this environment, why should an investor who can generate profits with a conventional building take the trouble to develop, to build, and to market something new? The problem is that as a rule, investor calculations need consider neither architectonic standards nor social responsibility. Of course, some investors in the elite premium segment of the market avail themselves of the services of reliably opulent star architects. In the portfolio of real estate investment firms, the expression “high-quality” means something completely different from architecturally high-quality housing construction. Moreover, it should be permissible to ask: Why must real estate generate such high returns? In whose interests are these yields? From commercial banks to investors, from construction firms all the way to notaries, everyone found along a maximally extended value creation chain is determined to grab a share. Conversely, measures that would benefit society as a whole — that is, proposals for restraining rent increases — face well-organized lobbyists who strive to thwart such legislation. The consequences are deleterious for both architecture and urban development. In a market branch based on stable returns, experiments are regarded as risky, and hence undesirable. The cookie-cutter architecture of contemporary administration buildings has long since insinuated itself into residential architecture. And if the monotony of postwar mass housing construction could be justified by its alleviation of extreme shortages, the current wretched state of thematic monotony and design cacophony must be attributed to growth-oriented economic pressure. Falling by the wayside,

meanwhile, is a differentiated housing development that might serve the interests of all members of society and would be obligated to collective public space. Counterforces Nevertheless, building cooperatives, smaller building associations, and similar initiatives that provide economical housing while keeping a tight rein on the chain of value creation have met with successes in recent years. Even so, it is primarily well-situated, educated middle-class people with clear status parameters who are able to participate in such initiatives. Examples are the Kalkbreite in Zürich and the Spreefeld in Berlin — ambitious projects where young and old, people from a variety of backgrounds but with stable incomes, decide to coexist. A striking feature of the compact buildings of the Hunziker Areal is the unostentatious assembly of sanitary facilities and kitchen modules in favor of an architectonic diversity in all other realms that is unrivaled for a quarter on such a modest scale. As a rule, such diversified floor plans and forms of appearance are familiar from areas that evolved over extended periods of time. This project is reminiscent of the Vienna Model, with its stipulation that the city should build well for all, or perhaps of the residential experiments of the “documenta urbana” in Kassel-Dönche from the early 1980s. No question: that which corresponds in today’s Switzerland in the broadest sense to the earlier social and now subsidized housing development in Germany displays a high structural-technical level. Remarkable in particular on the Hunziker Areal is its structural multiplicity, whose meaning and function ought to be explored. Inhabitants But in the context of the present focus on residential construction and economics, we must also take a look at ourselves. Our housing demands are rising ­steadily —  not just with regard to floor space. Bathrooms are transformed into wellness oases, living rooms become “living landscapes,” kitchens, high-tech laboratories. The real estate and consumer goods industries know well enough which social strata are capable of generating profits. They develop a menu of offerings that corresponds to no genuine needs, but instead responds to demand. Put differently: productive markets are invented. Who really needs a kitchen cabinet tablet mount in order to read recipes on a tablet? Or an Almighty Board, which allows you to slice an onion on a cutting board with an integrated scale? Who actually needs to measure the temperature of cooking oil with an infrared thermometer that is built into a smartphone? Do domestic appliances really need an EmotionLight? Emerging now from the inherently rational interplay between supply and demand is a vicious circle: vendors stimulate appetites, and consumers succumb to them rather than shaping supply by articulating dissenting demands. Still, we are more than victims of rampant commercialism and the pursuit of profit.

148 149

The modes of behavior to which the residents of the Hunziker Areal have committed themselves contractually may indeed point the way forward. By subscribing to the principles of the 2,000-watt society, and by renouncing private car ownership, they are obliged to alter the conduct of daily life. To be sure, these and other requirements may sound confining. In fact, the public, semipublic, and private residential environment of the Hunziker Areal offers residents a functional and spatial diversity that does without a number of bells and whistles, in the process rejecting certain so-called laws of the market. A successful outcome on the Hunziker Areal would provide testimony that a new economic theory can be developed out of the praxis of social coexistence. Such an economic theory would not serve the interests of traditional economics, but would instead represent the interests of society as a whole.

On a Low-tech Path to the 2,000-Watt Society

Andreas Hofer and Manuel Pestalozzi

“Our goal is the 2,000-watt society”, is one of the core sentences in the mission statement of the More than Housing cooperative. With their low-energy construction methods, low-energy consumption, and carefully selected technical systems, the thirteen residential buildings in the Hunziker Areal offer an optimal basis for a resource-conserving way of life. The more effectively the technical measures employed can lower consumption, the greater the influence exercised by the residents’ behavior of consumption and mobility on their personal energy balance. The More than Housing building cooperative has taken up this challenge, using certain labels of certification and technical standards as a helpful point of departure in order to go one step further. There is a great deal of potential in this project; yet it also raises the difficult question of the extent to which a cooperative may and can influence the everyday lives of its residents. Labels and Behavior The idea of what a sustainable project might look like and what technical, design, and functional aspects needed to be taken into consideration to achieve this goal guided the planning process from the outset. The single-stage project competition, which was set from 2008 to 2009 together with the City of Zürich, required both urban developmental concepts and architectural designs including examples of apartment floor plans. This approach was based on the organizers’ recognition of the fact that sustainability cannot be limited to a single building. Instead, it can only be achieved on the larger scale of the residential quarter as a whole and through a process of ongoing dialog with residents. In accordance with the idea of such a dialog and in reaction to the partly problematic homo­ geneity of existing large-scale estates, the aim of the competition was not to find a complete turnkey solution. Rather, from the outset the intention was to further develop the winning design in collaboration with other prize winners. The departments of Sustainable Building and Project Economics in the Zürich Office of Civil Engineering examined all the submitted designs and provided the competition jury with a report as a basis from which to proceed. It was verified that in the early stages of such a project, there is a direct relationship between ecological and economic issues. Simple geometric factors (compactness, the number of floor levels relative to the enveloping surface, the proportion of this surface taken up by windows, underground building volume) have distinct and significant effects on the amount of energy required and on construction costs. Astoundingly, projects maximizing sunlight exposure by using narrow rows did not rate well. In the urban context, it is more expedient to invest in density. This was very evident in the case of Fellini, the first-place urban-development project by the Futurafrosch/Duplex Architekten consortium. Compact, deep building volumes and a tight network of thoroughfares showed how the qualities of inner-city neighborhoods could be realized in a development area. The image presented by the design also featured short routes between structures, a central square, commercial uses for ground floors and social and cultural functions, providing a point of departure for the development of a lively neighborhood with synergies and thereby structurally reducing mobility needs — the image of a dense, multifaceted European city.

150 151

During the subsequent development of the project, within the framework of the so-called dialog phase, a key task was to integrate the other winning architectural teams (Müller Sigrist, Miroslav Šik, Pool) and their ideas into the undertaking as a whole and to distribute the buildings among the different planning teams. This was also the phase in which technical concepts were defined, budget goals were examined, and structural engineering experiments were elaborated for the individual buildings. The experienced building-service engineer Werner Waldhauser provided consultation on the search for innovative building concepts and supported the cooperative in the formulation of its sustainability strategy. Since the building-rights agreement between More than Housing and the City of Zürich specified the highest standard for energy consumption (Minergie-P), the task now was to ensure that defined targets were met while at the same time allowing scope for experimentation and unconventional ideas. In recent years, sustainable building has triggered an increase in the use of technology and associated costs. Building technologies are becoming ever more complex and their everyday operation increasingly sophisticated. As a construction cooperative that needed to reconcile economic aims (keeping rents as low as possible) with ecological goals and, based on its democratic character, was committed to maintaining a close dialog with its residents, More than Housing decided to look for concepts that combined high energy standards with the least possible amount of building technology. The fact that the building-rights agreement did not obligate all buildings to bear the label of Minergie-P but rather specified that the level of energy consumption would be maintained at corresponding levels across the entire estate meant that there was scope for experimentation. However, this made the planning process unexpectedly complex, requiring constant monitoring and budgeting. The engaged discussions that ensued around this topic were made open to the public by More than Housing in a series of different events. Differentiated Strategies The search for pragmatic technical solutions shaped the character of the imple­ mentation planning. Gray energy, energy efficiency, and local provision of re­ newable energies were themes that fundamentally influenced the agenda. One particular challenge was finding a way to integrate the strategies developed in the dialog process into the overall undertaking within a binding cost framework. At the same time, the results of conceptual discussions needed to be integrated into the implementation planning. Due to the size of the project, the installation of building services had to be shared out among different engineering firms. This phase of the project proved to be very complicated. The implementation planning called into question a number of fundamental decisions, and solutions to problems regarding certain details had to be found without departing from the path that had been embarked on. Comprehensive analyses, computations, and simulations were required. However, ultimately it proved possible to maintain the project’s fundamental principles. As a result of this process the residential quarter took on an extraordinarily diverse character, one that facilitates an analysis of comparative building costs as well as comparisons of different technologies with regard to efficiency and acceptance in operation. Apart from conventional solid buildings with compact thermal installation, two wooden buildings were constructed as well as three

monolithic structures, two of single-layer masonry and one of insulating concrete, all of which have a pioneering constructional character. In terms of building technologies, More than Housing installed different types of ventilation systems and made the project available to the building technology industry as a platform for testing innovative concepts. The Path to the Goal Given the size of the project, it was not only the need to permanently monitor energy performance but also the measurement and optimization of gray energy use and ecological building quality (based on the Minergie-Eco standard) that proved particularly demanding. It became evident that the integration of these aspects into planning sequences was far less established than the calculation of operating energy. At an early stage, More than Housing commissioned Studio Durable to calculate the degree of gray energy used in the project as a basis for optimizing construction. The highly compact volumes and the reduction of basement surfaces (three of the buildings have no cellar, and the size of the underground garage was kept to a minimum) enabled the project to lie below the ambitious thresholds for gray energy set by the efficiency standards of the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects (SIA). The task of determining the dimensions of the underground garage involved dealing with complex relationships between different aspects of sustainability. It was finally a mobility concept based on a massive reduction of individual parking spaces (106 underground and 60 aboveground spaces for 1,400 residents and a number of commercial operations) that allowed for a reduction of the underground building volume. To meet both spatial and water heating needs, More than Housing worked together with contracting specialists from the Zürich Electricity Works (EWZ). As the granter of building rights, the City of Zürich was interested in using the waste heat from a nearby computer center, which had been built by the city in collaboration with the Organization and Information Technology Competence Center (OIZ) and started operating in 2012. The solution was ultimately achieved by awarding a contract to construct a system involving the transfer of waste heat measuring 30°C from servers using heat pumps and an energy network that supplies all the buildings with two temperature levels (a lower one for room heating and a higher one to load heat-storage vessels for hot water). The system is backed up and supplemented by the existing district heating network sourced by the Hagenholz waste incineration facility. The use of waste heat generated by the computer center was a further reason for a low-tech approach to the ventilation of the buildings. Only four of the thirteen buildings are ventilated using controlled inlet and outlet airflows and cross-flow heat exchangers. The rest of the buildings are served by simple exhaust-air systems with overflow openings in the facades (in the roller-shutter boxes in the frames above the windows). The careful optimization of this system rendered horizon­tal ventilation ducts in the ceilings unnecessary and facilitated a massive economization of gray energy based on the reduction of ceiling thicknesses. Whereas today concrete ceilings in residential buildings are normally between 26 and 28 cm thick so that they can easily house complex building-services technology, the More than Housing ceilings as a rule measure only 20 cm.

152 153

Low flow temperatures for heating, large, compact volumes, and simple ventilation systems allowed largely to dispense with sensitive control and regulation technologies. Calculations made during the planning process suggest that, despite slightly increased ventilation losses, the significantly lower consumption of electricity for ventilation devices will prove advantageous in terms of overall consumption. In order to examine these effects and assess user behavior and possible comfort problems, a monitoring system has been installed that measures the temperature and humidity in each apartment every fifteen minutes and feeds the information into a data network (eGain). With this project, the More than Housing cooperative is attempting to provide an alternative to the massively increased integration of technology into ­residential buildings in recent years and in the process to meet ambitious sustainability objectives. This approach involves certain risks in the everyday context and presumes a high level of communication with residents as well as swift and competent reaction to complaints. To this end, More than Housing has devised a monitoring and communication strategy. Over the next three years a study supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy will monitor this process in order to evaluate the experiences of this pilot project and disseminate them as widely as possible.

Socially Integrative: The Communal Garden in the Hunziker Quarter

Doris Tausendpfund

In 2011 the Institute of Natural Resource Sciences (IUNR) at the Zürich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) in Wädenswil initiated an urban farming project with More than Housing which was christened the Front Gardens (Die Vor-Gärten). The project was a first “appropriation” of the Hunziker Areal, and its aims were to draw attention to the activities of More than Housing in the quarter, to create links above all with the neighboring school, and to inform planners and the cooperative about possible forms of urban farming, that is, the cultivation of useful plants in the urban environment. The Front Gardens thus offered a foretaste of possibilities to cultivate and use edible vegetation that would later be available in the newly emerging quarter. As a first step, the IUNR and pupils from the second grade at Leutschenbach School planted vegetation in mobile boxes in front of the pavilion of the More than Housing cooperative. In the following school years up to July 2014, action days were organized as part of lessons that addressed different topics connected with useful plants. During these action days the focus was on a hands-on approach. Pupils engaged in a range of supervised activities related to useful plants and gained practical experience of seeding, growing, and ripening. The young gardeners were soon rewarded with the opportunity to harvest the products of their work and quickly moved on to processing their yields, creating their own herbal salts, seasoning their stick bread with spices produced on-site, and discussing their taste experiences around a campfire. There was positive interaction both within the classes and with their new neighbor, the More than Housing cooperative, which intensified the pupils’ experience of the development of the new residential quarter. The plant boxes stood on a public thoroughfare and all passersby were welcome to sit down and enjoy a taste experience or simply look at what was going on around them. The IUNR saw itself as a moderator, as guiding the process and offering a framework for encounters between people. The gardening process (from initial planting to care and then harvesting) took place in small steps and a playful atmosphere; it was emphasized that pupils should have fun participating and that the time they spent in the garden had to fit in with the school curriculum. Leutschenbach School offered good structural preconditions for the project: its teaching staff was open to the process and, with lunches cooked in the school itself, the plants could find immediate use. The cultivation project drew a great deal of interest; it aroused curiosity and the only small acts of vandalism proved harmless: a gooseberry plant and a ripe pumpkin were taken, and a rhubarb plant that mysteriously disappeared turned up again after the summer holidays. The Project Develops In 2012 the More than Housing cooperative gave two of the plant boxes to Leutschenbach School and the Zürich Green City project donated a further three to expand the planting project. The children actively helped to move “their” boxes with the help of a forklift provided by one of the firms involved in the construction project. Thanks to the thoughtful help of the pupils and Green City gardeners, an ideal location was found for the boxes. The children filled them with gravel and substrate and subsequently drew pictures of the envisaged harvest. Their pride and engagement provide a fertile basis for the development of a congenial network of relationships between the More than

154 155

The plant boxes relocated several times by pupils from Leutschenbach School as part of the urban farming project. Spring 2015 saw the first planting of ground soil on the site.

Housing cooperative, Leutschenbach School, and Zürich’s Green City project. The children thoroughly enjoyed seeing the plants grow on a daily basis and their enthusiasm inspired other pupils. When the school kitchen now uses products from the plant boxes, the result is food invested with joie de vivre. These are dishes that tell stories. The plants used were all edible, tasty, and for the most part indigenous. Aesthetic criteria played a role in their selection since they also constituted a design element within the public space. Further criteria included the particular location and growing conditions as well as the minimal care requirements of the project. During the action days the schoolchildren were able to acquire more detailed knowledge about the plants they were working with. The plants in the troughs differ in terms of growth cycle and longevity, and this means that harvesting them does not result in empty boxes. Woody plants such as juneberry and Cornelian cherry, which produce a large amount of fruit over time and whose appearance is not altered by harvesting, provide a yearround basic structure. These have been supplemented by shrubs such as burnet and cicely, which are long-living, increase their growth from year to year, and offer a very particular taste. The most productive plants are the annuals such as tomato and mangold. Their growth cycle constantly alters the appearance of the troughs and, thanks to their rapid development, they can serve as stopgaps. A mixture of two-thirds long-living and one-third annual plants has proved optimal. Only a small effort is required to cultivate and harvest a broad range of useful plants. Watering directly after planting and during long hot periods along with occasional weeding are sufficient. The involvement of the schoolchildren has made it possible to increase the level of care and thus of plant production. This work is supervised by the pupil voted “master gardener”. It is a position that brings with it obligations and responsibility and strengthens pupils’ identification with the project. The process of planting, cultivating, and harvesting the plants, processing their yields, and learning about them has given the children the opportunity to build a strong relationship to the plants — which has proved beneficial for the school cook. His contact with the pupils, the help he has provided, his use of the plants as ingredients, and the subsequent enjoyment of the end results have all helped to build meaningful relationships. It is important that the plants are close to paths and part of the children’s everyday experience. It was only once the troughs were placed directly adjacent to the school that cultivation and care of the plants took on a more intensive character. I — We — Everyone The Front Gardens marked the beginning of a dynamic process. The project ­became a link between the pupils from Leutschenbach School and the growing residential quarter, helping the children to understand that neighborhood spaces do not simply come into being but can be designed and that their contribution is seen as valuable. The children take this experience back to their families, thereby performing an important networking task within the quarter.

156 157

The project has taught us several lessons: – Applying such a concept as a process is the key to long-term success. – Direct and uncomplicated access to useful plants is important. – Plants contribute to social sustainability and neighborhood development processes. A communal garden based on the theme of “From I to We to Everyone” is now being established in the Hunziker-Areal. It is a project marked by a new approach to the cultivation of useful plants that is moving away from the classic, fenced-off allotment garden toward a garden community and in the best of cases to an open space for everyone in the residential quarter. The energized atmosphere generated by the pioneering residential co­ operative More than Housing and the topical theme of urban gardening offer very promising preconditions for bringing people together in the garden who do not see themselves as gardeners and have hitherto had hardly any relationship to plants. The community garden constitutes an ideal, low-threshold point of departure for building up relationships with other members of the coope­ rative. People talk about the plants and get to know one another in the process. Covering a spectrum that stretches from simple manual activity to complex knowledge of cultivation methods and the needs of different plants, gardening offers a diverse range of people the possibility to participate. Perhaps some of them will contact parents and grandparents whose knowledge in this area has previously barely been utilized and now threatens to disappear. Coordinating all this and making it a process that works as a whole is a challenge but one that has significant potential. It is up to the residents to decide on the character of this process and how it will unfold. Allowing oneself to become part of a process and be carried along by it opens new doors. It requires the courage, stamina, and preparedness to reflect repeatedly on one’s own standpoint. Will the gardening community be prepared to make their harvest available to all the residents of the quarter, thereby giving everyone access to fresh, locally grown useful plants? A conscious decision has been made not to demand any service in return or compensation for such access but rather to allow any agreement to develop out of the process itself. Future Prospects Those experienced in gardening are providing important insights, while the fresh viewpoint brought to the theme of useful plants by amateurs is broadening the horizon of the project, with the result that a great deal is being tried out. It is a constellation that has the capacity to explore the full potential of useful plants for a sustainable and educative form of gardening. One of the aims of the current urban gardening movement is to create structures that provide subsequent generations with better possibilities of producing their own useful plants in their immediate residential environment, for example by establishing the “urban gardening process specialist” as a recognized profession, one that can help ensure that hopeful cultivation does not end in collective frustration.

Perhaps the potential of urban farming lies foremost in the fact that it allows people to experience the intense taste of fruit that has been left on the plant until it has fully ripened. It makes consumers into producers. The extent to which urban farming can make a contribution to food provision and independence from conventional production, with all its resource and transport problems, will depend on the long-term value placed on this form of localized production by each individual. In the new residential quarter, the neighborhood now taking shape has the opportunity to build up a sustainable form of food production. However things turn out, in the new communal garden concepts are being negotiated and applied with visible, tangible results that are being achieved by the residents themselves. Whether one has access to plants or not, everyone has to eat.

158 159

5 More than Housing —  an ABC Andreas Hofer

164–171 Agenda

172–175

162 163

More Than Housing — an ABC

Andreas Hofer

Allmende Like Genossenschaft (cooperative society), Allmende — meaning “commons” — is a very old Swiss word. In the context of More than Housing, it supersedes the term common space, which is on the one hand too narrow, and on the other, not precise enough. Community is an activity. It can be experienced at a celebration, while gardening, in discussions, or in the sauna. It is the “we” (→ I — We — Everyone) on the scale from private to public. Abroad, many people find Swiss residential projects fascinating, but then immediately emphasize that all of this is possible only because Switzerland apparently enjoys a long tradition of communal solidarity. This is true, but is at the same time a cop-out. The twentieth century was the age of separation between function and social cohesion. With much money and marketing, politics and industry promoted the subject, the small family, the individual consumer. In an aging society, and faced with limited resources, we must establish new practices. Recourse to old concepts and practices may prove to be a valid strategy here. Artists A marvelous tradition was established during the financial crisis before World War II that obligated cooperatives on urban parcels that were covered by building laws to devote 0.5 to 1.0 percent of building costs to art. This we gladly did. While earlier cooperative housing estates were graced by fountains surmounted with nude youths, More than Housing sought dialogical processes for the art and building project. An advisory board developed concepts and formats and defined three phases: acquisition, building process, everyday life. Irene Grillo and Stefan Wagner designed Phase I, the Riklin brothers, with their Studio for Special Works, were responsible for Phase II. Karin Freitag maintained a journal through her art blog. The Riklin brothers celebrated the exuberant fashion of declaring everything to be art and encroachments by artists into the social process in an exemplary way by declaring More than Housing to be a SUZ, a Social Urban Zone. At the moment, the members of More than Housing are delighted that Manifesta is using a cluster apartment as a homebase, and that the tenor Christoph Homberger has fallen in love with the project and is planning to open his musical salon here. Just how Phase III will look remains open. It may prove to be unnecessary as a ­curated project, because the residents of the Hunziker Areal have already developed sufficiently artistic vitality. Chinese Architecture/Cluster Apartments A lecture on the Swiss system of cooperative housing development, delivered in Burgdorf on a gloomy winter morning in front of thirty Chinese planners, architects, and representatives of public authorities. Impenetrable expressions, a leaden atmosphere, no questions, no discussion. Suddenly, murmurs ripple through the group, startled faces: a slide shows the building with cluster apartments by Duplex Architekten (→ Duplex Architekten). This sort of thing isn’t permissible. The distorted rectangle of the plan disrupts harmony. What follows is an animated discussion concerning cultural values, tradition, family forms, and communality. The ice has been broken. Concrete Element/Fountain A century ago, excavations undertaken in the course of large-scale infrastructural work in the city center (commuter rail cutting; basement for block perimeter development) covered over the reedy marsh of Zürich North, making

it possible to build there. Incisions beneath the reed beds disclose the original terrain. Commercial enterprises settled in Leutschenbach. The Steiner con­ struction company (→ General Contractor) began as a window factory; the Hunziker firm produced concrete elements. Today, a few concrete panels on the small square near the exit from the underground car park and to the west of Dialogweg 7 recall this past. For More than Housing, concrete elements as base cladding are an important architectonic element. The ground floors are four meters in height and robust. They were delivered by the firm SAW from St. Gallen, Rhine Valley. The largest prefabricated element, however, is the fountain at Hunzikerplatz, delivered by special transport in May 2015. Duplex Architekten For the competition, Anne Kaestle and Dan Schürch of Duplex Architekten joined forces with Futurafrosch, and the resulting team developed the project Fellini, which received first prize in spring 2009, both as a town planning project and as an exemplary individual building that embodies a congenial realization of the cluster idea, reflected here on both the planning and the built version of Dialogweg 6. More than Housing is the first large-scale project by this office. During project planning and realization, Duplex won a number of competitions with More than Housing, and is today a thriving practice. Futurafrosch In 2007, with their booklet Codex: A Handbook on Quality Control in Residential Development, the architects of Futurafrosch won the “Wohnen morgen” ideas competition, and hence a ticket to subsequent commissions —  including ultimately More than Housing. Sabine Frei and Kornelia Gysel, working in a team together with Duplex Architekten (→ Duplex Architekten), confidently won this project competition. With their translation of the cluster principle in urban planning and architecture, they produced a poetic and at the same time high-performance interpretation of the overloaded competition program. Only time will tell if the cluster typology, with its flexibility and congenial interpretation of social needs, becomes the Wilhelminian apartment type of the twenty-first century. Without heavy-handed regression, Futurafrosch has overcome technocratic modernism and constructed highly atmospheric spaces that serve as settings for everyday life. This is proof of their serious and at the same time playful investigation of the possibilities of architecture, which for them is always a form of scenography. Future The German sociologist and social psychologist Harald Welzer coined the term Geschichten des Gelingens (“success stories”). The advocates of alternative lifestyles often despair, doubting that their lived models will be taken up immediately by the majority. If we are aware of the conditions prevailing in slaughterhouses and of the environmental effects of meat production, why aren’t we all vegetarians? Yet society is more complex, more contradictory in its dynamics. Nonetheless, successfully lived alternatives are of incalculable value. They are the laboratories (→ Risk) of possible futures, the germ cells of new lifestyles, contributions to different developmental tendencies. This is all the more true for a large-scale residential project. If More than Housing were defining lifestyles, it would be a gated community filled with do-gooders. As a platform for experimentation on the part of residents, it nonetheless exercises an influence.

164 165

General Contractor With More than Housing, much was organized in an experimental and process-oriented way; nevertheless, the cooperative sought certainty concerning costs and scheduling by having project coordination handled by a general contractor. This decision was criticized by many — in particular by the architects, since it meant that during implementation, they could only influence detailed decision-making to a limited degree. On the other hand, the cooperative needed a strong, professional partner to get to grips with such a complex project. In December 2011, after meticulous preparations and the bid announcement, carried out together with the management office b+p, the execution of More than Housing was entrusted to Steiner AG. From this point onward, project development proceeded through a highly charged and ultimately successful triad formed by the architectural teams/specialist planners, the general contractor, and the cooperative. Guesthouse Again and again, we were astonished by the possibilities opened up by the project’s large dimensions. They led to a kind of imperturbability. An idea that proves inapplicable here may work well two houses away. Assembling itself now was a network of functions, synergies, spaces, and possibilities. In recent cooperative projects, a couple of guest rooms have been standard. On the scale of the Hunziker Areal, twenty became a realistic option: a dimension that would make possible professional management with full-time staff, extended opening hours and reception services, and ensure the guests a nice breakfast in the restaurant. The concept of the Allmende (→ Allmende) — the commons — applies here as well. A seminar room serves the community for gatherings; emerging together with additional rooms is a flexible infrastructure of significant value for business enterprises and for the quarter as a whole. Hagenholz Most people associate the name of this locality with the refuse incinerator plant. Somewhere out there, there is a civil protection center, the studio of Swiss Television, and a World Trade Center. Bus no. 781 travels along Giebeleichstrasse to Glattbrugg. What does one see there? Hagenholzstrasse is also an impressive avenue of plane trees. Projects such as More than Housing have complex underworlds (→ Submarine): transformer stations for electricity, retention basins for storms, district heating pipes, underfloor containers, subterranean garages. All of these invisible structures have an impact on the horizon aboveground. They harden surfaces and interfere with the root systems of existing trees. We fought for every tree, but ultimately lost in most instances. The little copse along Saatlenfussweg, which recalls the original reedy landscape, has shrunk to a pitiful remnant. In the end, most of the trees along Hagenholzstrasse, protected during the building phase with great effort, had to be felled. But new plane trees will be planted within the framework of the redesign of Hagenholzstrasse. Housing Shortage Official bodies do not care for these words. They allude to scarcity and inefficient allocation. Middle-class circles assert that we are not dealing with a housing shortage, but instead with an exaggerated sense of entitlement and false inducements. Statistically, there is something to be said for this argument. The average rents in Zürich are surprisingly low, but the people who depend

upon affordable apartments have no access to them. Cooperatives are faced with a dilemma. The more markedly their rents deviate from the market, the more their tenants cling to the cheaper apartments. If they upgrade their estates, they destroy affordable residential space. The only way out is additional production. In this respect, the voters of Zürich made the right decision in 2011, when they called for an increase in the proportion of nonprofit housing development from 25 to 33 percent. Only in this way can a stable stock of affordable apartments be established. More than Housing demonstrates this in an exemplary way: as a new cooperative, we were able to offer living space to households that had never benefited previously from nonprofit housing development. I — We — Everyone Doris Tausendpfund, who works at the University of Applied Sciences in Wädenswil on the use of plantings in urban space, has assisted More than Housing with urban gardening projects. In a report, she subdivided the site into surfaces for the “I,” the “we,” and for “everyone.” This urban-agronomic definition became a metaphor for the project as a whole. The city is in a continuous equilibrium, with negotiation between personal needs, social activities, and the question of the relationship of individual to community. Joulia More than Housing invited the construction industry to participate in a marketplace of ideas. Are there products that are just about to be introduced to the market and could benefit from a push toward practical application? The Joulia shower tray jumped out at us right away. It functions in a closed circuit, with the warm shower water prewarming the cold freshwater as it drains away. More than Housing had thirty Joulia showers installed. As usual, it was a question of persuading contractors and assessing risks, and, as usual, problems emerged in unexpected places. Where do we mount the shower curtain? How do we prevent the shower from overflowing? Meanwhile, there is a version 2.0 of Joulia, which stores the recovered heat in a separate heat exchanger. Landscape Architecture Klaus Müller and Rita Illien, the landscape architects for More than Housing, were the only planners who shaped the site in its totality right up until the end. Their design is a masterstroke of composed diversity. They did not string together functions, but instead set utilizations into relationship with surfaces and plantings. The inspiration for Hunzikerplatz as the heart of the urban space was Idaplatz. As satellites, three smaller plazas form anchor points, linked via side streets, before the site opens up to its surroundings. Emerging at Riedbach and in Andreas Park are expanses — Allmenden (→ Allmende), or commons, that serve as free spaces to be appropriated and shaped by residents. Müller Sigrist In February 2009, Müller Sigrist won the competition for the Kalkbreite project; in May of the same year, they enjoyed another success when they received second prize for their exemplary individual building for More than Housing. In terms of town planning, Müller Sigrist adhered closely to the specifications of the guiding principle, designing a meander that joins the interior and exterior

166 167

streets and staircases in a complex spatial program. In the dialog phase (spring to autumn 2009), they applied an idea from this project to the building at Dialog­weg 11. The two staircases provide access to two mezzanine apartments that are interlocked via high-ceilinged living rooms to form a dizzying three-dimensional figure. The building at Hagenholzstrasse 104 enhances Hunzikerplatz with a vertical garden, and with its restaurant, guesthouse, and reception area, functions as a gateway to the site. Genossenschaftsstrasse 5 and 7 is perhaps the most conventional of the thirteen buildings, a block with family apartments and leasable rooms. Peter Sigrist died in early 2014 and was not able to see his project completed. Nail Salon/Mixed Use Observable among the numerous project participants were two differing attitudes: the arrival of the nail salon means the project is dead; and if the nail salon arrives, the project has attained its objective. Today, the beauty salon Beauty Eggä offers its services in a small space at Dialogweg 7 in the Hunziker Areal. There is also a hair salon at Hagenholzstrasse 106, a violin maker at Genossenschaftsstrasse 13, and two restaurants, located at Hagenholzstrasse 104 and Genossenschaftsstrasse 18. We spent considerable time brooding over the activation of ground floor utilizations. What does it mean to create a new quarter in a no-man’s land? What is required to allow neighborhood groups to become active, to build up shared platforms? What is required for the new quarter to emerge? The Hunziker Areal, a nonplace at Zürich’s periphery, has now become a part of the city. Organigram In their totality, the names that surface via the project’s organigram, which changed in concert with various phases, represents an impressive Who’s Who of Zürich’s planning and building scene. Building is always about communication as well. With an undertaking on the scale of More than Housing, communication threatens to become a decisive hurdle. That the project did not falter as a consequence is ultimately due to the commitment and determination of the participants. The shared objective of creating something exemplary was the mental motor, which admittedly spluttered now and then, but evidently persevered until the end. Pool Architekten During the jury process, there were extensive discussions concerning the questions: Can this unwieldy project, which envisions two elongated buildings running north to south and a linear space between them, actually function? Can it be transformed through a different site plan? Does it represent an attitude toward the assignment that is either too simple or too radical? For the space, Pool promised to install the most beautiful paving mosaic north of the Alps, and with noticeable delight, they devised dozens of apartment types and residential ideas for the two blocks. Ultimately, this earned them a prize as the wildcard in the ensuing dialogical process, through which the architects were obliged to integrate their ideas into the victorious site plan and to enhance it. Subsequently, they played precisely this role. At every location where urban planning difficulties arose, Pool designed a building. They exchanged buildings with colleagues until finally, a triad was fixed: a heavy concrete cube with sides measuring 30 meters at Hunzikerplatz, and in its shadow, the smallest and weakest wooden house,

with its sunroom as compensation for the shadow cast by its big brother, and for the absence of balconies. The third building, Hagenholzstrasse 108, turned out to be a mongrel. Structural analysis, costs, utilization: nothing but problems. The general contractor (→ General Contractor) refused to guarantee a price for this house, and in negotiations concerning costs for the project as a whole, Hagenholzstrasse 108 nearly led to a serious dispute between More than Housing and the Steiner firm. To this day, we still don’t really understand why — perhaps it’s like every large family: one child always loses out. Found in this building is one of the loveliest apartments: the one in the worst location, at the northeast. Quality The buildings of More than Housing are generous spatially. A few of them have fantastic interior courtyards. We called this “betting on density”: the assumption that a quite large and deep building permits interior spaces that, so to speak, come at no charge. When this simply materializes, the bet seems to pay off. Some visitors and residents were annoyed by the rough concrete walls, and initiatives have been launched to introduce corrections. Hopefully, they will not be too successful. Quality was also a constant conflict between the architects, the developer — attentive to standardization and rationalization — and the implementing general contractor. Which details are important, where can eco­ nomies of scale be useful? These contradictions led to the majority of conflicts. We regard this drive toward consummate design with a certain equanimity. More than Housing is not animated by tectonic details, but by its content and overall appearance. Responsibility Among other things, architecture is always a power play. To design and build is to shape the living environments of people who have only a limited degree of influence on the result. When an entire section of a residential quarter is built, this power is all the greater. That is why in 1968, Lucius Burkhardt demanded that building would have to become processual (“building as process”), and the architect — in contradistinction to the obsolete image of the architect — would no longer be regarded as a “great master” but instead as an “equal member of an interdisciplinary team” (Lucius Burckhardt, Walter Förderer: Bauen ein Prozess [Teufen, 1968]). In the case of More than Housing, the property developer assumed this role to some extent. An absolutely essential contribution was moderation and mediation between the various needs of experts, agencies, and laypeople, the flexible adaptation of objectives to the practicable, yet without allowing the fundamentals — in particular affordability — to be lost sight of. Risk No risk, no fun. No one who builds a pioneering project knows what he or she is in for — otherwise, no one would bother. More than Housing, too, pushed all of its participants to the edge of their endurance. On the other hand, risks on Zürich’s real estate market are limited: if one form of large-scale habitation is not approved, there will be a project for a student residence to take its place. Specialists warned us that new forms of housing were not in great demand, that people would seek out what they already knew. Maybe so, but this fails to consider that at the moment, we find ourselves in a fundamental demographic

168 169

transformation, that we are becoming an older and more fragmented society. More than Housing was faced with the task of extending the framework of conventional housing development. Such experiments are not risks but rather opportunities to learn. Miroslav Šik The competition project by Miroslav Šik correlated most closely to the town planning concept of Futurafrosch/Duplex. He proposed large individual volumes. His reinvention consisted in these being shifted together to some extent diagonally, creating a labyrinthine ground plan for the large and special residential forms. With the building at Genossenschaftsstrasse 18, this typology was built. Two fantastic (→ Organigram) interior courtyards, each with a staircase, form an infinity sign in plan. Not only because Miroslav Šik’s town planning concept betrays an affinity with the realized project, but also by virtue of his systematic search for high-quality apartments in large buildings, his three buildings resemble variations on a theme: the onion-style accretion of access, functional, and residential spaces around interior courtyards and diagonal routes facing the light at the corners of buildings. As a representative of an older generation of architects, an ETH professor, and a respected individual, Miroslav Šik was a figure of awe, but also triggered anxiety. And although he repeatedly expressed criticism of the project and its realization right to the end, the realization of his buildings involved the fewest problems. They accommodate the quarter to the location, fitting it in and anchoring it, and Genossenschaftsstrasse 18 resolves a difficult urbanistic hinge situation. Single-Layer Masonry In Switzerland, ZZ Wancor distributes Porotherm perforated clay building bricks used in single-layer masonry and manufactured by the Austrian firm Wienerberger. Together with the insulating concrete building at Genossen­ schafts­strasse 13, the two single-layer masonry buildings by Duplex Architekten (→ Duplex Architekten), Dialogweg 6 and Genossenschaftsstrasse 16, are examples of the search on the part of More than Housing for simple, direct materializations. Even when they contradict the principle of reducing gray energy to some extent, we are nonetheless fascinated by the validity of their monolithic construction, and believe that the financial and energetic investment in buildings that promise long lives is well worth it. This type of single-layer masonry construction also demonstrates that at the detailed level the “simple” can be quite demanding. The material requires a far-reaching examination of its possibilities before the construction can do it justice. The application of various construction methods and technologies was one of the challenges for all of the participants in More than Housing. It proved necessary to develop much that was new, and to integrate this into the complex building logistics. Such exertions are possible only in the framework of a pioneering project; we are nonetheless delighted with the richness of the estate, as displayed in its material experimentation. Submarine The thirteen buildings of More than Housing sit on top of 1,300 displacement piles that measure up to 45 meters in length. The load-sustaining ground lies even deeper; the piles stabilize the buildings in this former reedy, marshy (→ Hagenholz) area. After being sunk, each was tested for its load-bearing capacity.

When one proved inadequate, another pile was sunk in the vicinity, and the engineer was obliged to adapt the foundation berm. The building site was difficult and inhomogeneous, barely drainable and waterlogged. Aside from load-bearing capacity, the high groundwater table and limited retention capacity necessitated tricky, costly, and adversarial processes and measures. During one load test, a pile simply disappeared; it had sunk into the boggy ground — a submarine in the alluvial soil of Zürich North. Xenophobia More than Housing is located in one of Schwamendingen’s exclaves north of the railway embankment, and is hence part of Zürich’s largest district, one dominated by cooperatives. Whereas in the 1960s, Schwamendingen was an attractive middle-class neighborhood, it has declined socially since then; although foreignness has been perceived here as representing a loss of Swiss social security (as reflected in voting patterns in Schwamendingen), More than Housing has opened up new forms of access to the foreign and to integration. Many people with challenging backgrounds have found cheap apartments here, yet the architecture and the integrative concept have provided ethnic and social diversity with a new face. It is not a burden, but a value. To cultivate this culture in everyday life will be an enormous challenge for the administration and for communal life. Yoga Alongside families with small children, More than Housing has attracted a striking number of people who engage actively — whether professionally or personally — with environmental and social questions. They recognized the potential value of getting involved with More than Housing, of contributing to its formation. As a consequence, More than Housing has demonstrated that the desire for sustainability and community residential forms is not restricted to trendy city center districts, but is in fact typical of broad segments of Swiss society. Such people are self-aware and discerning in their tastes. It is hardly accidental that dance, movement, and bodywork are being offered in two different commercial spaces, and that the first neighborhood groups to form in the quarter (→ I — We — Everyone), are devoted to nutrition, barter transactions, and yoga.

170 171

agenda

2007

2015

2007 12/05

Founding of the building cooperative More than Housing

2008 01/31

Workshops with all members and formation of working groups on the themes of utilization, economy, ecology, technology, and ownership

05/17

First “echo chamber”: current situation

07/22

Architectural competition launched

July

Workshop: “Cost Reduction in Nonprofit Housing Construction”

October

26 architectural firms take part in the architectural competition

11/07

First information meeting for the members of the cooperative

January

25 architectural firms have submitted their proposals

2009 02/02

First thematic conference

03/14

Second echo chamber: architectural competition

03/30

The jury for the architectural competition selects the winner in the urban-development category and awards three further prizes for building concepts

04/09

Public announcement of winners of the architectural competition

05/05

First workshop on project revision: dialog phase

July

First discussions with Zürich city authorities about the integration of a kindergarten and day care center

09/19

Third echo chamber: winning teams of the architectural competition receive feedback and input

09/24

Presentation of results of feedback/input process (dialog phase)

11/12

Workshop: “Market of Groundbreaking Ideas” — presentation of technologies and concepts by the building industry and planning offices

2010

172 173

03/30

Fourth echo chamber: sustainable construction based on building technology and energy use/innovative ideas regarding building envelopes and building technology

April

Preplanning with the architects (five architectural firms and one landscape architecture firm) and the technical planners

05/14

Futurafrosch and Duplex publish the brochure “Häuser im Dialog. Ein Quartier entsteht“ (Buildings in Dialog: A Quarter Emerges) as a summary of the dialog phase and a guideline for further project planning

06/15

Fifth echo chamber: state of the project, reports from the theme-based groups

06/22

General meeting decides on construction budget: CHF 180 million

07/14

Building approval by the City of Zürich/ municipal council provides building rights and a bridging loan

11/11

Sixth echo chamber: building technology and energy use

January

Beginning of the selection process for a general contractor

03/02

Cost ceiling offer by general contractor

03/03

Seventh echo chamber: art and construction

03/09

First phase of art-and-building with Irene Grillo and Stefan Wagner

03/18

Initial workshop on project optimization with Steiner AG and planning teams

05/30

Urban farming project in collaboration with Leutschenbach School

May

Project “frozen” for transfer to general contractor

07/18

First “Summer Playtown”: During their summer holidays, school students can build their own town in a program run in the Hunziker Areal.

07/26

Party to mark submission of building application

11/03

Eighth echo chamber: ground-floor uses

11/28

“District without Borders” event; More than Housing networks in the district

11/29

Building approval issue by the City of Zürich

12/08

Decision by the Street-Naming Commission: Hunzikerplatz, Genossenschaftsstrasse, Dialogweg

12/15

Signing of contract with general contractor Steiner AG

2011

2012 January

Addition of building project manager to head office team

04/02

Ninth echo chamber: voluntary work

May

Final presentation of building project, beginning of execution planning

05/16

Final presentation of building project, beginning of execution planning

05/31

City council decision: construction subsidy for 20 percent of the apartments

07/01

Construction commences

07/03

Slab-raising instead of breaking ground

Summer

Concept for the leasing of commercial spaces; leasing commences

September

The Institute of Humanities and Natural Sciences at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern ­Switzerland runs a district workshop with More than Housing: “Urban Development through Strong Urban Neighborhoods” and develops concepts for a local economy, alternative currencies, and local supply using More than Housing as an example.

11/12

Tenth echo chamber: organization of a lively quarter

2013 03/19

Eleventh echo chamber: residential quarter currency

04/09

Presentation of More than Housing model

04/24

Laying of foundation stone; founding of the first neighborhood groups

09/26

First public tour of the building site

10/31

First residence registrations possible

2014 February

First apartment allocations

03/18

Presentation of the study by Matthias Probst: “More than Housing and the 2,000-Watt Society”

09/01

Head office moves into the new building at Hagenholzstrasse 104

10/22

First key hand-over for the building at Genossenschaftsstrasse 11

11/01

Public inspection of the first building. The architectural team and More than Housing open each building to the public prior to occupation

12/01

First residents’ meeting

12/03

Children discover their new home

2015

174 175

March

The Federal Office of Energy approves a three-year research and monitoring project on the ecological performance of More than Housing and its optimization.

05/09

Opening of the Hunziker Guest House and the “züriwerk” workshop for the disabled

05/13

Study: Initial Leasing in the Hunziker Areal: Tools — ­ Processes — Experiences, Corinna Heye, raumdaten GmbH

05/16

Occupation of last building: Genossenschaftsstrasse 16

07/04

Opening party

6 Biographies

178–180

Further Reading

181–182

Picture Credits

182

Thanks

183

176 177

Biographies

Jürg Altwegg

Born 1970 in the Canton of Zürich. Trained as a radio and TV electrician and studied electrical engineering. Has worked in several different fields: computer networks, technical documentation, ­mechanical engineering, and housing construction (Giesserei, a multigenerational residential project). Swiss certified adult educator.

Ursula Baus

Dr.-Ing.; studied art history, philosophy, and archaeology in Saarbrücken. Studied architecture in Paris and Stuttgart, where she completed her doctorate. Until 2004, editor, followed by work as a freelance architectural journalist and academic. Until 2010, university teaching positions in architectural criticism and theory in Stuttgart. Since 2010, a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Basel 2020. Until 2012, a member of the Advisory Board of the German Federal Foundation of Building Culture. In 2004 cofounded frei04 publizistik in Stuttgart. Prize Expert for the Mies van der Rohe Award.

Thomas Borowski

Born 1966 in Wallisellen. Commercial apprenticeship followed by several years working in the international commodities trade. University entrance exam at the KME Zürich, followed by studies in journalism, English literature, and sociology at the University of Zürich. From 2003, journalistic work in various organizations. Since autumn 2011, freelance writer and journalist.

Patricia Collenberg

Born 1968. Studied textile design and stage design at the Zürich University of the Arts (ZHdK). Qualified art teacher and founder of the Zürich-based fashion label COLLENBERG/PONICANOVA. Director of OKIDOKI — Spielplatz für Kunst (Playground for Art). Conducts design projects for children and young people with an emphasis on art education. Has undertaken projects for a diverse range of public and private institutions in Zürich and teaches in the fields of costume, stage design, and textile design.

Dietmar Eberle

Born 1952 in Hittisau (Vorarlberg). Studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology; cofounder of the Vorarlberger Baukünstler. Collaborated with Carlo Baumschlager, 1984–2009. Director of the Lustenau office of the renowned baumschlager eberle architectural firm. Has taught at universities in Hanover, Vienna, Linz, Syracuse (NY), Darmstadt, Madrid, Jerusalem, and Hong Kong. Since 1999 he has been professor of architecture and design at the ETH Zürich and director of the ETH Wohnforum — ETH CASE (Centre for Research on Architecture, Society, and the Built Environment).

Angelus Eisinger

Born 1964, qualified university lecturer in the field of urban development and planning history. 2005–2008, professor of urban and spatial development at the University of Liechtenstein. 2008–2013, professor of the history and culture of the metropolis at the HafenCity University Hamburg. Since 2010, a member of the ­Academic Advisory Board of the IBA Basel 2020. Since 2013, director of the Zürich and Environs Regional Planning Center (RZU). Consultative and conceptual work in the field of urban and spatial development.

Sarah Fuchs

Born 1983 in St. Gallen. Studied geography at the University of Zürich. 2010, intern and research associate with the Zürich Canton Office for Spatial Development. Since 2011, research associate with the consultancy and research enterprise raumdaten GmbH in Zürich.

Marie Glaser

Dr. Phil.; studied literature, ethnology, and cultural anthropology. Since autumn 2014, ­codirector, with Margrit Hugentobler, of the interdisciplinary research group ETH Wohnforum — ETH CASE. As academic director, responsible with Dietmar Eberle for the ETH Master of Advanced Studies course in housing. Focuses of work: cultural and social history of residential life, residential research, building biographies, and social sustainability in district development.

Kornelia Gysel

Born 1975. Studied architecture at the ETH Zürich, then practical experience in the fields of stage design, architecture, and urban development. Has worked for architectural firms in Switzerland and abroad and as a teacher and researcher. In 2009 founded Futurafrosch GmbH with Sabine Frei. Since 2011, participation in juries and expert evaluations; since 2013, member of the Schaffhausen Cityscape Commission.

Corinna Heye

Born in Berlin in 1974. Studied mathematics and geography at the University of Kiel. Research assistant at the Geographical Institute, University of Zürich 2001–2008 and at the ETH Wohnforum 2006–2007. Doctorate on “Socio-spatial Processes in Urban Spaces in Switzerland,” University of Zürich. 2008– 2010, partner in spatial development consultancy Fahrländer Partner Raumentwicklung. 2011, founder and director of the consultancy raumdaten GmbH. Since 2012, lecturer on residential life and urban sociology for various postgraduate programs (including HSLU, SIREA, and CUREM).

Nicola Hilti

Born 1976. Dr. Sc. ETH. Studied sociology and communications in Vienna, followed by work in the department of the sociology of space at the

Chemnitz University of Technology. Since 2005, research associate with the ETH Wohnforum — ETH CASE. 2011, completed an interdisciplinary doctoral study at the ETH Zürich on multilocal living. Other focuses of work: mobility, residential living in transition, and residential living in old age.

Andreas Hofer

Dipl. Arch. ETH Zürich, 1989. Partner with the planning and architectural firm Archipel in Zürich. Involved in founding and developing the Kraftwerk 1 housing cooperative. Consultant on strategic decision making for cooperatives, private property developers, and public authorities; publications in specialist media; communication for public events; participation in competitions and on juries and teaching at universities.

Margrit Hugentobler

Born 1951. Ph.D. in urban, technological & environmental planning; M.S.W., University of ­Michigan, Ann Arbor (USA). 1985–1992, research in the USA. From 1992, research associate with the ETH Wohn­ forum — ETH CASE; since 2009, director of the research group. Research themes: innovations in ­residential construction, living situations, and residential needs of different target groups, cost of living, multilocal living, sustainable urban development, and quality-oriented urban densification.

Christian Huggenberg

Studied economics, politics, and history in Berlin and Manchester. Worked as a business journalist for print and electronic media and spent five years as editor of the Handelszeitung. Continuing education diploma at the MAZ journalism college in Lucerne and advanced studies in management (EoM) at the University of St. Gallen. Partner in the Taktform communications agency.

Anne Kaestle

Born 1975. Architect. Studied at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen, and the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio with Peter Zumthor. Following the completion of her diploma in 2000 worked for a year with MSGSSS in Buenos Aires and subsequently Meili und Peter Architekten. In 2007 founded the architectural firm of Duplex Architekten with Dan Schürch in Zürich.

Robert Kaltenbrunner

Born 1960 in Vilseck, Germany. Studied architecture and urban development at the Berlin ­University of Technology (1980–1986), followed by freelance work in a variety of fields. Doctorate on “Urban Developmental Concepts in the Reconstruction of Shanghai in the 1950s and 1960s.” 1990–1999, project leader with the Senate Department of Building and ­Housing in ­Berlin; since 2000, director of the Building and

178 179

Housing division of the German Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (Bonn and Berlin). Numerous publications on different aspects of planning and building.

Daniel Kurz

Born 1957. Studied social and economic history at the University of Zürich and subsequently worked as an assistant professor and research associate at the ETH and the University of Zürich. From 1996, staff member of the Zürich municipal office for the preservation of historical monuments; from 2001, worked for the City of Zürich Public Works Department. Publications and exhibitions on housing and school construction, sustainable building, and urban development. Dissertation: “The Disciplining of the City: Urban Development in Zürich 1900-1904.” Editor in charge of the architectural journal werk, bauen + wohnen.

Pascal Müller

Born 1971 in Billens (FR). Dipl. Arch. ETH/SIA/BSA. 1991–1997 Architectural studies and diploma, ETH Zürich. Worked for, among others, Studio Libeskind, Berlin; A. McGabhann Architects, Ireland; and Gigon Guyer Architekten, Zürich. In 2001 founded with Peter Sigrist the architecture firm Müller Sigrist ­Architekten, which is now run by Pascal Müller and Samuel Thoma. 2010–2012, guest professor in wood technology at the Bern University of Applied Sciences. Guest reviewer and jury member for a diverse range of organizations in Switzerland and abroad.

Manuel Pestalozzi

Born 1962. Studied architecture at the ETH Zürich. 1997–2013, chief editor of the construction trade journal architektur+technik. In 2013 founded his own firm, Bau-Auslese Manuel Pestalozzi, which provides copywriting and information services.

Peter Schmid

Born 1959. Freelance business consultant, eMBA in management of nonprofit organizations (University of Fribourg). Studied business management in Zürich and St. Gallen. On the executive boards of several nonprofit organizations. President of the building cooperative ­Allgemeine Baugenossenschaft Zürich and the cooperative More than Housing; administrative board member of nonprofit corporations and involved in other organizations in the field of nonprofit housing construction.

Claudia Schwalfenberg

Dr. Phil., University of Münster; MA in modern German studies, University of Sussex, and DAS in arts administration, University of Zürich. Spent three years working in public relations with the German Foundation for Monument Protection (DSD) in Bonn, seven years as director of public relations with the German Federal Chamber of Architects (BAK) in Berlin, and deputy chairperson of

the German Cultural Council. Since 2008 responsible for building culture at the Swiss Engineering and Architectural Association (SIA) in Zürich.

tive sector for twenty-five years. Involved in the building cooperative More than Housing from the beginning, she has been its managing director since 2009.

Miroslav Šik

Doris Tausendpfund

Born 1953 in Prague. Studied architecture 1973– 1979 at the ETH Zürich with Aldo Rossi and Mario Campi. 1980–1983, research on Swiss architecture during World War II at the gta Institute ETH Zürich. 1983– 1991, assistant professor to Prof. Fabio Reinhart at the ETH Zürich. 1986–1991, developed Analogue Architecture, the subject of exhibitions in places such as Zürich, Vienna, Berlin, Strasbourg, Oslo, Stockholm, and Prague. Since 1988 has had his own architectural firm in Zürich; numerous projects and publications. Guest professor in Prague and Lausanne. In 1999 became full professor at the ETH Zürich. In 2012 represented Switzerland at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Pia Simmendinger

Born 1967. Dr. Sc. ETH. Dipl. Arch., ETH Zürich and M. Arch., Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles (US). Until 1997, worked as an architect in Switzerland and Denmark. 2000–2007, taught design and lectured at the ETH Zürich, where she was awarded her doctorate in 2010. Since then has organized and run symposiums and workshops and acted as a jury member at universities in Switzerland and abroad. Publications on the history of urban development, architecture, and design teaching.

Axel Simon

Born 1966 in Düsseldorf. Studied architecture at the Dusseldorf University of Applied Sciences and the ­Berlin University of Arts and history and theory at the ETH Zürich. Design assistant to Axel Fickert, Markus Peter, and Peter Märkli at the ETH Zürich. Ten years as a freelance writer on architecture for newspapers, ­specialist press, and books. In 2006, Swiss Art Award in the art and architectural criticism and education section, associate member of the Federation of Swiss Architects (BSA). Since 2010, editor of the Hochparterre journal of architecture, planning, and design.

Mischa Spoerri

Born 1964. Dipl. Arch., ETH/BSA. In 1992 completed architectural studies at the ETH Zürich; until 1997, worked for Dürig + Rämi, Jakob Steib, and Georg Gisel; in 1998 cofounded Pool Architekten, specializing in ­r­­esidential and school construction and urban planning; since 2006, member of the Federation of Swiss Architects (BSA); since 2007, member of the Krokodil architectural group; in 2012, guest lecturer at the ETH Zürich.

Monika Sprecher

Born 1962 in Zürich, preschool teacher. F ­ ollowing different professional positions in Switzerland and abroad, she has been active in the building coopera-

Born 1972 in Regensburg. Trained as a shrub grower at the Gräfin von Zeppelin nursery in Laufen. Studied landscape architecture at the Weihenstephan University of Applied Sciences in Freising. CAS, Civic City, Zürich University of the Arts. Master of Advanced Studies in supervision and coaching in organization, IAP Zürich. Since 2007, director of the Plant Use Research Group at the Institute of Natural Resource Sciences at the Zürich University of Applied Sciences.

Claudia Thiesen

Born 1973. Studied architecture at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. She is a self-employed architect in Zürich and a consultant to nonprofit housing ­developers. 2004–2012, member of the board of the Kraftwerk1 building and housing cooperative responsible for new residential estate projects; since 2012, executive ­director of the Zwicky Süd project. Member of the board of More than Housing since its foundation, and a member of its building commission and building committee.

Werner Waldhauser

Born 1946 in Basel, 1967–1970 studied at the School of Engineering and Architecture in Lucerne, graduating with an HVAC engineering diploma. In 1973, founded the engineering firm Studer + Waldhauser. From 1985, sole proprietor of the firm Ingenieurbüro Werner Waldhauser. In 2008, he began transferring his business to his sons and today works as a consultant, helps organize architecture competitions, and provides advice on and campaigns for low-tech solutions.

Nicoletta West

Born 1966. Artist; MFA, Rutgers University (Mason Gross School of the Arts) (US), CAS in design projects for children and young people, Zürich University of the Arts, Visual Design diploma, Lucerne University of Arts. Freelance artist and art teacher. Diverse grants and awards. Founder of OKIDOKI—Spielplatz für Kunst (Playground for Art); runs design projects for children and young people with an emphasis on art education. Has undertaken projects for a diverse range of public and private institutions in Zürich.

Sabine Wolf

Born 1972; Dr. Sc. ETH, Dipl.-Ing. Spatial and environmental planner, landscape architect, and member of the Swiss Federation of Landscape Architects. Lives and works as a freelance journalist and editor in Zürich; book projects and events associated with, for instance, city and neighborhood development. From 2008 to 2014, member of the board of the Kalkbreite housing cooperative, since 2014, member of its management.

Further Reading

Architecture—Housing—Non-Profit ­Residential Buildings A+T Research Group; Fernández Per, A.; Mozas, J.; Ollero, A. S. (Ed): 10 stories of collective housing: Graphical analysis of inspiring masterpieces. Vitoria-­ Gasteiz: a+t architecture Publishers 2013 Detail (Hg.): Best of Housing: Selected housing highlights from DETAIL. München: 2012 Durban, Ch.; Koch, M.; Kurz, D.; Schumacher, M.; Somandin, M.: Mehr als Wohnen: Gemeinnütziger Wohnungsbau in Zürich 1907—2007: Bauten und Siedlungen. Zürich: GTA Verlag 2007 Eberle, D.; Glaser, M. A. (Ed): Wir wohnen: Wohnen – Im Wechselspiel zwischen öffentlich und privat. ­Sulgen: Niggli 2009 Ebner, P.; Hermann, E.; Röllbacher, R.; Kuntscher, M.; Wietzorrekl, U. (Eds): Typology+: Innovative Residential Architecture. Basel: Birkhäuser 2009 Ferré, A. (Ed): Total Housing: Alternatives to urban sprawl. Actar 2010

Stadt Zürich, Präsidialdepartement Statistik Stadt Zürich (2009). 4 x 25 Günstig wohnen in Zürich. Statistik Stadt Zürich 2009 Stadt Zürich; Schweizerischer Verband für Wohnungs­ wesen SVW Sektion Zürich (Ed): Wohnen morgen: Standortbestimmung und Perspektiven des gemeinnützigen Wohnungsbaus. Zürich: NZZ Libro 2008 Stadt Zürich; Simon, A. (Ed): Wohnen in Zürich: Programme, Reflexionen, Beispiele: 1998–2006. Sulgen: Niggli 2006 TU Wien, Abteilung Wohnbau und Entwerfen; Brull­ mann, C. (Ed): Re-searching utopia: When imagination challenges reality. Sulgen: Niggli 2014 von Becker, A. (Ed): Building and Living in Communities. Ideen , Prozesse, Lösungen/Ideas, Processes, Solutions. Basel: Birkhäuser 2015 Wietzorrek, U. (Hg): Housing+: On Thresholds, Transitions, and Transparencies. Basel: Birkhäuser 2012

Fezer, J.; Heyden, M. (Eds): Hier entsteht: Strategien partizipativer Architektur und räumlicher Aneignung. Berlin: b_books 2004

Wirz, H. (Ed): Miroslav Šik: Architecture 1988-2012. Luzern: Quart 2012

Gilg, M.; Schaeppi, W.: Lebensräume: Auf der Suche nach zeitgemässem Wohnen. Sulgen: Niggli 2007

Living for the Elderly

Glaser, M.A.; ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE (Ed): Vom guten wohnen. Vier Zürcher Hausbiografien von 1915 bis zur Gegenwart. Sulgen: Niggli 2013

Alisch, M: Älter werden im Quartier: Soziale Nachhaltigkeit durch Selbstorganisation und Teilhabe. ­Kassel: Kassel University Press 2014

Heckmann, O.; Schneider, F. (Ed): Floor Plan Manual. Basel: Birkhäuser 2012

Binne, H.; Teske I.: Handbuch Intergeneratives ­Arbeiten: Perspektiven zum Aktionsprogramm Mehrgeneratio­ nenhäuser. Opladen etc.: Verlag Barbara Budrich 2014

Hildner, C.: Future Living: Collective Housing in Japan. Basel: Birkhäuser 2013 Imhof, L.: Midcomfort: Wohnkomfort und die Architektur der Mitte. Wien: Ambra V 2013

Bott, J. M.; Winkler, S. M.: Netzwerkarbeit und Selbstorganisation im demografischen Wandel: Eine praxis­ orientierte Arbeitshilfe. Berlin: Verlag des Deutschen Vereins für öffentliche und private Fürsorge 2014

Künstlerhaus Wien (Ed): Housing Models. Experimentation and Everday Life. Wien: Folio 2009

Feddersen, E.: Living for the Elderly: A Design Manual. Basel: Birkhäuser 2009

Maak, N.: Wohnkomplex: Warum wir andere Häuser brauchen. München: Carl Hanser Verlag 2014

Hoffmann, M.; Huber, A.: Begleitstudie Kraftwerk1 ­Heizenholz: 2010-2014. Zürich: ImmoQ 2014

Pool Architekten; Roesler, S. (Ed): Pool Architekten: Work Journal: 1998-2010. Zürich: GTA 2010

Hoffmann, M.; Huber, A.: Hausgemeinschaft 50plus Kanzlei-Seen: Begleitstudie 2008-2013 Zürich: ImmoQ 2014



180 181

Ruby, I.; Ruby, A. (Eds): Re-inventing Construction. With an Illustrated Index by Something Fantastic. ­Berlin: Ruby Press 2010

Picture Credits

Höpflinger, F.; Van Wezemael, J.; Wohnen im höheren Lebensalter: Grundlagen und Trends. Zürich etc.: Seismo. 2014 Jekel, G.; Pätzold, R.; Seidel-Schulze, A.; ­Bundesinstitut für Bau-, Stadt- und Raumforschung (Eds.): Neues Wohnen - gemeinschaftliche Wohnformen bei Genossenschaften: Ein Projekt des Forschungsprogramms “Allgemeine Ressortforschung” des Bundesministeriums für Umwelt, Naturschutz, Bau und Reaktorsicherheit (October 2014 ed.). Bonn: Bundesinstitut für Bau-, Stadt- und Raumforschung 2014 Michell-Auli, P.: Quartiersentwicklung: KDA-Ansatz und kommunale Praxis. Köln: Kuratorium Deutsche Alters­ hilfe 2013 Netzwerk: Soziales, neu gestalten (Ed.): Zukunft ­Quartier - Lebensräume zum Älterwerden: Band 3: Soziale Wirkung und «Social Return». Eine sozioöko­ nomische Mehrwertanalyse gemeinschaftlicher Wohnprojekte. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung 2010 Programm Projets urbains (Ed): Quartiere im Brenn­ punkt: gemeinsam entwickeln, vielfältig gestalten. Bern: BBL 2013 Rowles, G. D.; Bernard, M.: Environmental ­gerontology: Making meaningful places in old age. New York: Springer 2013 Schulz-Nieswandt, F.: Neue Wohnformen im Alter: Wohngemeinschaften und Mehrgenerationenhäuser. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2012

Michel Bonvin 35 Foto a+t research group 35 Roger Frei 83, 86, 89 Karin Gauch 74, 77, 80, 93, 95 Andrea Helbling Arazebra Zürich 19 Andreas Hofer 18 (Heizenholz) Tom Kawara 35 Walter Mair 68 (interior), 71 (exterior) Johannes Marburg 68 (exterior), 71 (interior) Bert Muller 35 Collection Familistère de Guise 35 Flurina Rothenberger 93, 95 Volker Schopp 18 (Kalkbreite), 98 Fabian Schwartz 74, 77, 80, 93, 95 Reinhard Seiss 35 Nikolaus Spoerri 101, 104 Doris Tausendpfund 156 Ursula Meisser 23-25, 41, 48, 54-55, 59, 60-61, 106, 111-113, 124-126, 133-135, 160-161 Nicoletta West 125-126 Sabine Wolf 19 (Kalkbreite)

Thanks

Like the project More than Housing itself, this publication is the result of the fruitful collaboration of many individuals and organizations. The contributions by the authors not only provide a detailed picture of the development and design of the new residential quarter but also position the significance of this forward-looking experiment in an historical, sociopolitical, and urban-developmental context. Our sincere thanks go to our many authors for their commitment. The photographer Ursula Meisser imbued their texts with color and life. We would also like to thank the architecture firms involved for providing access to their design materials. This publication was made possible by the decisive contribution in terms of both finance and content made by the More than Housing cooperative and was also generously supported by the Age Foundation in Zürich and the Participation Fund of the City of Zürich’s Department of Finance. Our thanks for further financial support also go to the following organizations: Allgemeine Baugenossenschaft Zürich, Gebäudeversicherung Kanton Zürich, Hamasil Stiftung, Migros Bank, Stiftung Solidaritätsfonds Wohnbaugenossen­ schaften Schweiz, Walder Stiftung, Ernst Schweizer Metallbau AG and WOKO Studentische Wohngenossenschaft Zürich. We are deeply grateful to Alexander Felix and Katharina Kulke at Birkhäuser Verlag for their support during the process of conceiving, designing, and printing this publication.

182 183

MEHR ALS WOHNEN

More than Housing Cooperative Planning — A Case Study in Zürich ETH Wohnforum ETH Case Baugenossenschaft mehr als wohnen Edited by Margrit Hugentobler, Andreas Hofer, Pia Simmendinger Translation – Joseph O’Donnell Copy editing – Keonaona Peterson Project management – Alexander Felix, Katharina Kulke Production – Amelie Solbrig Design – Nadine Rinderer Typeface – Basis Grotesque and Heimat Stencil Paper – Fly 05, 130 g/m2 Printing – DZA-Druckerei zu Altenburg GmbH

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the German National Library The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in databases. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained. This publication is also available as an e-book (ISBN PDF 978-3-0356-0470-2; ISBN EPUB 978-3-0356-0472-6) and in a German language edition (ISBN 978-3-0356-0469-6). © 2016 Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, Basel P.O. Box 44, 4009 Basel, Switzerland Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF Printed in Germany ISBN 978-3-0356-0468-9

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

www.birkhauser.com

MEHR ALS WOHNEN