Perhaps because living costs are so high in Switzerland, building associations are pretty popular there. That’s why the story of Kraftwerk 1 isn’t as strange as it might be in other countries. This cooperative was originally set up in 1993 by architect Andreas Hofer, author P.M., and artist Martin Blum, for one specific eponymous project: a self-organised community where 700 people could live and work, sustainable in both an ecological and economical sense. This utopian scheme had to be adapted before it hit ground as a building with the same name with 100 apartments housing around 250 individuals.
The first building, completed in 2001, was such an international success that the cooperative has grown steadily and subsequently initiated a number of similar projects. The latest offshoot, Kraftwerk 2, aka Siedlung Heizenholz, is the conversion of two buildings in a former children’s home from the 1970s. Here, architect Adrian Streich designed a new interstitial building to connect the two existing ones and wrapped the entire structure with broad terraces, the terrasses communes. These are connected to an open staircase leading to the central courtyard, forming a system of open spaces in which residents can negotiate public or private use.
Inside, the building offers a broad variety of units, ranging from small one- and two-room apartments to completely unconventional “cluster apartments” of ten or more rooms, in which small private units are combined with larger communal rooms. Inside and outside, the house offers many ways of living together – a constant negotiation between the public and the private, between being together and being alone. p (fh)
Previous page: Kraftwerk 2 offers a broad variety of units, ranging from small one- and two-room apartments to completely unconventional “cluster apartments” of ten or more rooms, in which small private units are combined with larger communal rooms. (Image courtesy Adrian Streich architects)
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