Description

The Solinsieme “Factory for Living” is a self-organised and communally financed project that was awarded the Age Award 2007 by the Swiss Age Foundation and represents an attractive example for anyone who, at the beginning of the second half of their lives, is thinking of combining their housing situation with a communal form of living. The name derives from the contraction of the Italian words “solo” (alone) and “insieme” (together) and signifies the conceptual as well as architectural concept. To realise such a project, the four initiators, all women, purchased a former embroidery factory near the centre of St. Gallen in 2000 after consulting with their architects Bruno Dörr and Armin Oswald.

Over a period of 13 months of renovation and extension work, the existing fabric of the buildings from 1880 and the extension from 1887 were reutilised while the later extension on the south side dating from 1950 was replaced by a new building that serves as a communicative element containing the entrance and circulation, and terraces and outdoor areas. A total of 17 flats have been created, each a self-contained freehold unit following a Swiss ownership model, as well as numerous spaces for communal use which make up almost 20% of the overall floor area. These include the central communal room, called U1, with kitchen and bar, in which a variety of different events take place at regular intervals, as well as two ateliers, a guest room, a general-access roof terrace, a bicycle store and smaller utility rooms. The heart of the building is the access area facing the street with its inviting sun terrace.

The light-filled flats range in size between 56 and 93 m² and exhibit a wide variety of different floor plan arrangements and highly individual design solutions and materials, because the future residents were given a say in the design of their own living area. As there are no cramped bathrooms or corridors but rather freestanding sanitary cells, placed as boxes in the flat, and open kitchens, the flats feel very generous. Similarly the 3.80 m-high ceilings and tall mullioned windows in the historic building have been retained. To heighten the loft character, the upper section of the thin only 4 cm-thick partitioning walls are glazed.

Over 90% of the residents are very happy with their flats, but they are aware that the flats do have some deficits with regard to barrier-free access in old age, which was an initial motivation for starting the project. Evidently they are confident that together they will find an appropriate solution when the time comes and the need arises.

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Originally published in: Eckhard Feddersen, Insa Lüdtke, Living for the Elderly: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2011.