From City to Building

The analysis of single urban elements provides the foun-dation for understanding the individual building as part of the city. Simultaneously, we followed the opposite path by exploring single architectural elements of buildings in order to raise awareness of their meaning as components of the city. We accomplished this by juxtaposing different neighborhoods of the city of Zurich according to the following themes: the characteristics of type, distribution of functions within the city and within buildings, circulation infrastructure, volumetric aspects of the urban structure, building structures and the morphology of façades. Results were applied and further analyzed in the context of a design project for an ice stadium in a particular area of the city. Many of the questions arising from several walks in the city were addressed by means of these methods.

Mihaela Caduff	Véronique Schneider	Nic Wallimann
Marcel Wolf	Marcella Ressegatti
Marceline Ruckstuhl	Marcel Wolf

Train Station Oerlikon-East

The area surrounding the train station Oerlikon-East is gaining increasing importance. It has become a key location for linking previously peripheral neighborhoods, media centers (radio and TV stations) and the Zurich airport to the city proper. The area concerned is currently characterized by a heterogeneous structure of buildings, the redesign of which was the subject of visionary developmental study projects. A currently ongoing interactive planning dialogue related to the area determined the framework for the project brief in the sum-mer term. The results of the work completed in the winter term and an analysis of the planning context in question provided the background for the project for an ice hockey stadium or a wellness center. The goal was to achieve a harmonious interplay of urban design considerations, functional concerns and construction strategies.

Gusung Lim

Marcella Ressegatti

Reem Al-Wakeel

Center for Housing and Sustainable Urban Development

The ETH Wohnforum (Center for Housing and Sustainable Urban Development), founded in 1990, consists of a team of professionals in the fields of architecture, planning, community and social work, social psychology, sociology, and political science.

The Center carries out research and development projects in the areas of housing policy, housing design and construction and sustainable urban development. It also offers teaching and consulting services on these topics to higher education institutions, and other public and private sector organizations.

Elective ‘Housing’ (S. Gysi)

Second Evaluation of the Housing Complex Davidsboden in Basel

The housing complex Davidsboden with 160 inexpensive apartment units, was built in 1991 and evaluated for the first time in 1992 by the ETH Wohnforum. Results were published in the publication series ‘Housing’ (Volume 57) of the Swiss Federal Housing Office.

Davidsboden represents an innovative approach in that it seeks to apply existing experience of community-oriented, co-determined and self-managed housing to a large rental housing complex in an urban context.

The second evaluation reassesses the earlier findings and the situation as it presents itself eight years later. It documents the outcomes of the differing procedures adopted by the two property owners with respect

to adaptability, utilization flexibility, and tenant participation. Furthermore, tenant satisfaction, social integration both the complex itself and the neighborhood, tenant turnover and short- and long-term financial costs and benefits will be studied. The housing complex is also evaluated in terms of its sustainability. The evaluation is expected to yield conclusions about the complex itself as well as about the participation and selfmanagement model as such.

Student Housing Complex Bülachstrasse in Zurich

The Foundation for Student Housing is planning to build a new student housing complex at the Bülachstrasse in Zurich. The ETH Wohnforum was charged with the preparation of a data base on students’ housing preferences. The team developed a card game which was to establish a link between the level of rent that students were willing to pay for housing and the type of housing qualities of high priority for them. Twenty students played the card game. A literature review on the topic was complemented by an evaluation involving tenants in two existing student housing complexes who were surveyed as to their satisfaction with their housing situation.

Based on this information, the research team developed a program for an architectural competition and was responsible for organizing and implementing the competition and for the evaluation of the submissions in collaboration with additional jurors. The research team will continue to be involved in the evaluation of the projects selected for further elaboration.

Future Cities: Toward Sustainable Cities

This project involves the cooperation of interdisciplinary research teams from the ETH, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Tokyo and is part of the ‘Alliance for Global Sustainability’, a joint research effort between these three institutions. The research teams of the ‘Future Cities Group’ focus on the development of different but complementary methods, tools, and analyses related to sustainable urban development.

Preliminary work of the group has been published in a special issue of the Journal of Urban Technology

(Vol. 4, 2, 1997). A manuscript for a book to be entitled ‘Future Cities: Dynamic and Sustainability’ has been prepared and will be submitted for publication in the spring of 2000.

A follow-up project ‘AGS Future Cities – Guangzhou: A Partnership for Urban Sustainability’ has recently received funding from AGS. In cooperation with the local city government and the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong, the methods developed will be adapted and applied to problems of urban transportation, housing, waste and water management in the city of Guangzhou in Southern China.

Selected Publications

– M. Hugentobler & S. Gysi. Sustainable Urban Development in Zurich – Learning from Successful Projects, in Nystroem, L. (Ed.) City and Culture: Cultural Processes and Urban Sustainability. The Swedish Urban Environment Council, 1999.

– S. Gysi & M. Hugentobler. Teaching About Housing: A Bottom-Up Perspective. STOA (European Association of Architectural Education), 2, fall 1997.