Kraftwerk 1 | Stücheli Architekten
Switzerland | 2001 | soft form
| Address: | Hardturmstrasse 287, Zürich |
| Work Type: | new built |
| Context: | inner city |
| Number of Storeys: | 5- to 9-storey |
| Type of Building: | tenement / apartment house |
| Number of Units: | 106 |
| Other Uses: | 3,615m2 (offices) |
Description
This mixed use development for an inner city site in Zürich, comprises of three buildings of which two are mainly residential and one is commercial. Around 240 people live in the development and a further 90 people have their work place there. One of the initial ideas of the project was to provide spaces for a group of 15 to 20 people to rent (600m2 over two storeys), which could not only be subdivided and designed according to their ideas but also managed. These ‘Suiten’ were intended to allow different forms of communal and co-living though a variety of communal and private spaces. Although the full extent of these spaces didn’t materialise, the building blocks feature a large variety of flat sizes, ranging from 2.5 room flats to units with up to 13 rooms, from 31 m2 to 350 m2, from singles through families to groups of independent people.
The variety in apartment sizes is enabled by a repetitive constructional system of cross walls, which can be knocked through at points. The cross walls are spaced at the width of a typical residential room , a dimension that allows an almost infinite arrangement of layouts. Units are served by a central circulation and service core, but it is also possible to insert private internal staircases between cross walls, to create two or even three storey apartments.
Haus A, an eight-storey block is organised around four vertical circulation cores, which are connected via a large corridor on the ground floor as well as interior roads - rues intérieures - on the third and sixth storey. On the ground floor are communal uses such as a kindergarten, a bar, studio spaces and some commercial units, whilst the upper storeys are residential. Haus B3, the second residential block, has three- to seven-room apartments, maisonettes, and studio apartments on four storeys.
References
Hofer, A., Vision of the unnecessary. 4th attempt: Kraftwerk1 in Zurich, Architekt, 2005, pp. 69-73.
KraftWerk1, KraftWerk1, Bau- und Wohngenossenschaft KraftWerk1 (2001) http://www.kraftwerk1.ch [accessed 17 August 2005].
KraftWerk1 housing complex, Zurich, A+T, 2003, pp. 28-39.
Preisig, H., and K. Pfaffli, A concept and two examples,Archithese, 34, 2004, pp. 34-39.
Überbauung «Kraftwerk 1», Zürich, werk, bauen + wohnen, (2002), Werk-Material.