EMI Architekt*innen

The district of Schwamendingen, which was planned as a garden city by A. H. Steiner around 1948, still has its relevance today and retains much of its original character as Zurich’s “garden room”. The design formally adapts the rowed housing type in a new way. The characteristic housing rows react to the narrow and broad exterior elements, as well as to the higher density through volumes that shorten when regarded in perspective. The project’s egalitarian treatment of orientation, exterior spaces and the walkways picks up on the qualities of Steiner’s original plan. The project plans six S-shaped rows, grouped in mirroring pairs, covering the entire building site. Together with the slightly staggered rows, the buildings gain an elegant, finely modulated appearance. Single-storey commercial buildings on Dübendorfstrasse locate the row’s head end at the street.

The proposed living type with a detachable kitchen was developed out of the urban planning placement and highlights the slim nature of the building rows. It unites the qualities of open-plan living with the practical advantages of a kitchen that can be closed. The living room and its balconies are situated on the side of the additional exterior space, alternating its position in each housing row. The building entrances are at the head end and in the middle of the rows. The slightly staggered placement of the façades allows each apartment not only to have a primary east-west view, but also a north-south perspective, looking into the depth of the exterior space and towards the adjoining building sites.

in cooperation with Baumberger Stegmeier Architektur
Project competition in 2014, 1. prize
Construction 2014–2023