REUSE ZÜRCHER ZENTRALWÄSCHEREI

Zurich 8005

Margherita Pagani. Reuse project with Professor Philipp Esch.

“The project finds its strength in the tensions generated by opposites. On one side, the raw and industrial context in the basement - a topography consisting of subtraction that creates, in addition to the existing structure, unique environments. In contrast, the light architecture is constituted by the shed and the essentiality of the new buildings. The existing presented itself with an uneven pattern in its different parts: precisely in this disharmony we grasped the design opportunity, highlighting the construction individual elements. The different intensity of natural light distinguishes the spatial unit.”Our project is a set of three buildings with different functions: a center for the elderly, a public pool, a bar and a coworking space. Starting from the context, the idea is to recreate the two street fronts on Neue Hard and Josefstrasse with two additions, creating on the second front a landmark for the neighborhood.Although with different formal characteristics, the two facades have a permeable ground floor with a public porch and ramps and staircases that serve to overcome the threshold of 1.20 m. Starting from the outside, the idea was to make pedestrian the two roads facing the east and west facades, now used as loading and unloading for trucks, and plant a row of trees on the east side, an in - tervention already developed in different areas of the neighborhood. Moving on to the pool areas, the idea was to subtract from the pre-existing concrete slabs using the underground floors already present to gain the necessary height and thus creating an organic topography. Starting from the entrance, the visitor is forced to descend a floor and then find himself in an unexpected environment that creates a dialectic between the raw and industrial atmosphere of the former factory and the new elements. The area of the swimming pools for children, circular pools dug into the floor slab of the ground floor, together with the existing pillars, create a unique and evocative space also in the basement where there is a wellness area articulated between the existing pillars.The part of the retirement home is a courtyard building where there are different types of rooms depending on the needs. The complex hosts 100 elderly people, divided into five floors, each with common areas. Talking about the facades, the part of the Shed remains unchanged while the north and south facades show our intervention. The coworking space is characterized by a grid that filters the light evenly, but with the possibility to open it according to the needs to have direct light beams. The second facade, in steel, alternates full and empty spaces with a system of common loggias between several apartments for socialization.