How does more compact construction affect living space per resident?
The amount of floor space per person has risen steadily in recent decades and currently averages around 41 square metres. In perimeter blocks and mid-rise towers, this could be reduced to around 30 square metres without significant loss of residential quality \u2013 particularly where larger communal areas or flexibly usable indoor and outdoor spaces are available.<\/p>\n
How do you assess the future of high-rises and single-family homes in Zurich?
A city thrives on a variety of housing typologies, and both high-rises and single-family homes have their place. However, when 100,000 additional people move into the city, the single-family home is not an optimal urban development solution. New high-rises would have the capacity to absorb this growth \u2013 but they raise questions from an urban development perspective.<\/p>\n
What questions?
How well high-rises integrate into a historically grown city depends strongly on their location and surroundings. Our historical research has shown that Zurich has successful examples, but also less convincing ones. As our analyses demonstrate, Zurich can accommodate 100,000 additional residents very well through perimeter blocks and mid-rise towers. This finding surprised us: we had originally assumed that the city would inevitably need a large number of new high-rises.<\/p>\n
Should each high-rise therefore be judged on its own merits?
Yes, with a site-specific focus on location, surroundings, and the mix of uses. This reflects the tradition of European cities: growth is possible without high-rises, and densification is approached according to the specific place and situation.<\/p>\n
Does that apply to office high-rises as well?
Yes, they too must be assessed on their own merits. The urban development of cities such as Brussels, where I come from, offers valuable lessons: pure office high-rise districts feel deserted in the evenings and at weekends. Such urban monocultures are increasingly being questioned, and considerable investment is now going into bringing a greater mix of housing, work, and leisure into these areas in order to bring them to life.<\/p>\n
How do you see the optimal mix of housing and work in Zurich?
The boundary between living and working is increasingly blurring \u2013 this is a profound transformation of our cities. In Zurich, the Hunziker Areal shows exemplarily how the two can be combined. The key question is: how can work and housing be combined in the future so that both find their place close to one another \u2013 or even within the same building?<\/p>\n
Does working from home play a role in this?
Yes. Working from home reflects the shifting boundaries between living and working spaces. This is why Zurich needs more buildings that integrate both functions \u2013 for instance with workspaces in the same buildings as dwellings, or with shared office space within a development. The Kalkbreite housing and commercial development in Zurich is one such example. Perimeter blocks and mid-rise towers lend themselves well to this kind of mix. New buildings are not always necessary: existing ones can be retrofitted and upgraded \u2013 older high-rises included. Extending and adapting the existing building stock is a central concern of our research.<\/p>\n
What is the alternative to single-use districts?
The 10- or 15-minute neighbourhood: housing, work and daily needs all within walking distance. The city will develop in an increasingly polycentric way, forming several secondary centres. These can function as 15-minute neighbourhoods, where children, for instance, would find playgrounds, sports facilities and green spaces close to home.<\/p>\n
What role do schools play in urban development?
In Zurich, schools have always served a purpose that extends well beyond education. With their playground areas, sports facilities and infrastructure, they function as small neighbourhood centres \u2013 as meeting points that can be used in the evenings and at weekends for local events, sport and culture, by children, families and older residents alike. This centre-forming role of the school is by no means a given in an international context, and it will become even more important as the city develops polycentrically. More broadly, we recommend that public buildings be designed from the outset to accommodate a variety of uses at different times of day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How does more compact construction affect living space per resident?The amount of floor space per person has risen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[1208,3383,9125,6243,1337,2630,1202,1023,51],"class_list":["post-77788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-zurich","tag-architecture","tag-cooperations","tag-d-arch","tag-homehero","tag-landscape-architecture","tag-mobility","tag-news","tag-sustainability","tag-zurich"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116693922461789189","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}