Two weeks ago I went on a study trip to Zürich and Basel in Switzerland. Here I came across some interesting projects that I would love to share with you, enjoy!
The first project I loved was the Genossenschaft Kalkbreite in Zürich. I thought this was a lovely project on the topic of cohousing, which is becoming one of the big topics in architecture. Due to the growing population and the lack of ground to build on, compact living and cohousing are vital in the years to come.
Genossenschaft Kalkbreite is a cooperative which includes a restaurant, bar, daycare, an office for Greenpeace, storage of metros etc. on the ground floor. Housing is situated on the second level. There are private units available in different sizes depending on the number of inhabitants. You can live from 1 up to 4 persons per unit.
Furthermore, there are a lot of communal areas like: a kitchen/ dining room (which is also available for birthday party’s), reading area, washrooms, vegetable garden and “boxes”.
These boxes don’t have a specific function the inhabitants can propose them to each other and when enough people are interested, the box gets a new function as for example yoga room, television room, etc.
Living with others
“Due to the growing population and the lack of ground to build on, compact living and cohousing are vital in the years to come.”
Another project that caught my interest was the Library of the Institute of Law, Santiago Calatrava. The interior contains six oval rings, as a hanging structure within the rectangular courtyard. This structure is supported from the courtyard's walls at four point which leaves the the walls of the courtyard untouched.
Behind these rings, on the upper levels, you find rounded bookshelves and a long desk following the structure, where all the students can study. This is not visible when standing on the ground floor, which made this visite even more surprising!
