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Hunziker Areal

The co-op courtyard logic, scaled to a neighborhood.

Hunziker ArealHaller Juliet · CC BY-SA 4.0

City

Zürich

Year

2015

Buildings

13

Homes

~370

Residents

~1,200

Client

"mehr als wohnen" co-op coalition

Site

Former concrete plant

Zurich's cooperatives pooled their experience into one flagship: thirteen buildings on a former concrete plant, roughly 370 homes for some 1,200 people, with squares and lanes between the houses instead of one enclosed court. Ground floors carry workshops, a guest house, restaurants, and studios; upstairs, everything from studios to large cluster apartments.

What to steal: the coalition as client. "Mehr als wohnen" — more than housing — was founded by dozens of co-ops precisely to test ideas none could risk alone. It is the institutional form a second- and third-building Berkeley would need.

Hunzikerplatz — the central square between the thirteen housesHaller Juliet · CC BY-SA 4.0
Hunzikerplatz — the central square between the thirteen houses
The house at Genossenschaftsstrasse 13 — glazed uses at the ground floorTschubby · CC BY-SA 3.0
The house at Genossenschaftsstrasse 13 — glazed uses at the ground floor
Ground-floor commons in use: the residents' swap table at Dialogweg 6PizzaToast · CC BY-SA 4.0
Ground-floor commons in use: the residents' swap table at Dialogweg 6

Lessons for Berkeley

  • A coalition of co-ops can hold land and risk that no single group can — build the umbrella early.
  • Thirteen buildings by different architects, one brief: coherence without monoculture.
  • Cluster apartments serve households the unit-mix spreadsheet forgets.
  • The pilot-project mindset — test, publish, repeat — is itself the export.

Sources: mehralswohnen.ch. Figures approximate.

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