(BDT_11_020) Steinacker Residential Complex

Description

In the year 2000 the City of Zurich, in its position as landowner, initiated an architectural competition on behalf of a cooperative interested in utilising the site. The aim was to develop a 1.15 hectare large site on the edge of the city overlooking Lake Zurich with high-quality housing and external landscaping that takes into account the changing structure of society. Furthermore, maximum use of the site was to be made in order to meet the demands of economic viability of the project.

The winning design proposed five freestanding buildings in the form of modern urban villas. The five-storey buildings with full-height glazing bands are placed on the site in such a way that a multiplicity of views and spatial connections result, both between the buildings as well as between indoors and outdoors. The design of the load-bearing structure with cantilevered floor slabs and balcony balustrading on all sides lends the quadratic buildings a dynamic quality. The buildings appear to float above the terrain, an effect that is heightened further by the cladding of the opaque plinth with fixed double-wall glazing elements.

On a typical floor, four apartments are arranged around a central staircase. The rooms follow the arrangement of the column grid and face outwards with full-height glazed frontages. The bathrooms are arranged in a linear fashion around the central staircase. A larger room is located on each corner so that depending on arrangement, each of the 73 three-and-a-half and five-and-a-half-room apartments can be given a different orientation.

The arrangement of the floor plans and the rooms according to the column grid of the load-bearing structure allow the plans to be adapted in various ways to the needs of the individual residents. Depending on the situation, two apartments can also be combined at a later date to form large apartments.

The housing complex can therefore cater for an entire life cycle: families with children, couples, singles and the elderly. All flats have barrier-free access without thresholds and the entire route from underground car park to the top storey is suitable for wheelchairs. A lift in each building provides direct access to every floor of the building and the lift buttons are arranged lower than normal so that they can be operated easily from a wheelchair or by children. The entrances, equipped with doors that open electrically and at a width of one metre, are wide enough for wheelchair users or people with wheeled walking aids.

Despite these particular facilities, the apartments are not specially designed for the elderly but are simply spacious and light apartments which are designed so that the needs of old people are not excluded. Old people would like to live for as long as possible in their familiar surroundings and the design of the Steinacker housing complex caters for this need. In the rental of the apartments, special attention was given to achieving a mix of generations.

Barrier-free architecture is also beneficial for parents with prams, and each house has a special area for parking prams. One of the buildings contains a children’s nursery that caters for two groups and there is plenty of space for playing outdoors. Another of the five buildings houses a residential care group for up to six older people who are in need of ongoing nursing care. Each resident has their own room within the group and there is a large communal room and spacious kitchen, which is used on a day-to-day basis by the residents and the care staff to cook, sing and for handicrafts.

The Steinacker housing complex was awarded the “Age Award 2005” by the Swiss Age Foundation. The Age Award is presented to innovative projects which are then publicised widely. The aim is, through exemplary projects, to stimulate other new projects and developments. The inter-generational concept of “housing for the entire lifecycle”, which informs the design of the Steinacker concept, captured the imagination of the jury.