Re-Use Concrete! - An urban factory for Zurich

To meet the Paris climate targets our CO2 emissions must be dramatically reduced. In order to accomplish that goal this project demonstrates the potential of reuseing and reconfigurating whole concrete structures into a new building.

The project is located in Zurich Hart, situated inbetween the train tracks and prison building. Where the prison stands today was once the site of the Zurich marshalling yard. The resulting parallelism of the site and the staggered arrangement of the the existing SBB halls define the urban design of the new building. The existing sames, which are still connected to the network, form the backbone of the urban poduction facility. Here, not only the re-use components can be delivered and processed, but also the goods produced and the raw materials required by the factories can be processed. At first the delivery hall with its crane is erected above the railway tracks. Secondly the two new production halls will be docked on the flanks of the delivery hall. This allows a high degree of flexibility in the floor plan as well as the construction process. The ensemble is completed by docking the last hall, facing the city. The halls are each accessed from the western end, the eastern end is used for logistical pocesses. The structure is constructed out of deconstructed concrete parts of various deconstrcted buildings. Within the new construction pillars and slaps are held together with new steel details that are design for disassembly. The facade will be divided into two parts. The northern side will have a buffer layer, which will also serves as access to the commercial spaces. Due to the buffer zone a climatic boundary with less insulation can be used here. In the future, we will have to focus our efforts on reducing the waste and greenhouse gas emissions drastically. By building with reused components, the project was able to reduce emissions by 80% - 1688.86T co2-eq were saved compared to a new building.