The New in the Light of the Common

Inspired by the book ‘Recombinant Urbanism’, in which the architectural theorist David Grahame Shane newly anchors the concept of heterotopia, coined by Michel Foucault in architectural discourse, the present project provides an answer to the question of how places, that function outside of established conventions, should be built on.

From the initial analysis of the Zurich West district, it became clear that the Gerold area selected for the project is a place that functions differently from its surroundings. It has remained a place that functions outside of established conventions, emerging from one of the last structurally untouched remnants of the industrial age of the city of Zurich. An area that contains a complexity and multilayeredness that goes beyond the built environment. Particularly significant for the site are the different user groups that have appropriated the existing buildings over the past three decades. Together they form a conglomerate that characterizes the Gerold area, along with the thematic fields of urban development, interspace, programming and design. The character, resulting from this area of conflict, is unique and can be described as a heterotopia within the city structure. From the beginning, the area was not understood as a building wasteland, but served as a starting point for the design. This cognition formed the base for the concept of the project. The initial fascination with the Gerold heterotopia developed into an answer to the question of how the Gerold area could be developed in the future. Building on this, an attitude was established that seeks to treat the existing with respect. This led to a design that takes up the existing, in order to exploit its potential without destroying it. Therefore, the four newly inscribed typologies and their formulation do reinterpret the existing building structures in a new scale and despite their otherness, tie in with the history of the site. As a result, the project does not consider itself as the end of a development, but is rather to be understood as a base for a systematic transformation. A starting point for a newly implemented urban planning, which reveals the potential of a conscious further development without destroying Gerold's heterotopia.