Zürich

We asked two former MCH students from 2022 edition to reflect back on the impact the city of Zürich made on themselves during the study trip in the month of June. Suzanne Kteich, from Lebanon, and Androniki Petrou, from Greece, were selected to give their impressions on what impacted more in the city. They expressed themselves in a free manner only following the title as brief. The first: one house, one building, one public space, is about thinking back on the different scales of architecture. The second one: living together, snapshots of collective live in the city, looks for a graphic curation through the lens of a personally chosen theme.

Participative housing planning in Zurich As housing affordability diminishes in large cities and inexpensive living space becomes scarce, the cooperative model is resurging in popularity. Housing cooperatives have a long tradition in Switzerland and make up 18 percent of all apartments in Zurich, the largest Swiss city.

Kalkbreite: is a model project for mixed use, high density and social, ecological and economic sustainability. It comprises residential use, retail, offices and socio-cultural venues.

In 2007, the Kalkbreite cooperative won the competition to build housing over and around a streetcar depot in the center of Zurich. The project’s initiators had to be creative to plan quiet, high-quality living space above parked streetcars while experimenting with new spatial arrangements, living situations, and concepts of collectivity.

The Kalkbreite has moderate rents, innovative and flexible housing forms, and a resource-friendly, sufficiency-oriented vision.

Suzane visited quietly more parts of Zürich than anyone else in the Master. She chose this particular housing project, visited by the group during the study trip, because of the qualities she saw in the three different scales

Living together, snapshots of collective life in the city

Androniki Petrou

Andy is an innate photographer. She has been during the past year the recorder of moments and places visited. Through her instagram @andy_pt she has done one of the best visual narrations of the experience of living abroad for the Master. In this particular project Andy chose a series of photographs related to the urban landscape of Zürich during the MCH study trip in June 2022.