Housing Im Forster

Zurich, Switzerland

Photo © Roger Frei

Siteplan

First floor

Apartment Buildings

Architects: EM2N

Location: Zürichbergstrasse, 8044 Zurich, Switzerland
Year: 2011
Client: private
Type of Commission: Competition
Competition: 2004 1st prize
Planning: 2007–2010
Start of construction: 09.2009
Space Program: 24 apartments
Size: Gross floor area: 5’952 m2

The park complex ‘Im Forster’ is being developed according to a master plan. The five very different building lots are laid out in such a way as to ensure the optimum preservation of the parkland despite the introduction of new functions. The building lot ‘Gärtnerei’ is located on Forsterstrasse and its character is determined by the dense trees of a small wood in the south of the site. Together with planting that forms a kind of filter to the former tennis court a spatially introverted, atmospheric woodland clearing is created. The gesture made by L-shaped building creates an arrivals area on the road side and garden space on the park side that guarantees all the apartments maximum breadth and openness to the internal area of the park complex. The building, which is clad in white-painted wood, stands on an exposed concrete plinth containing a garage and studios. The form of the roof reduces the building’s volume. Apartments of very different kinds are created inside the building. Depending on their position they face in two or three directions or have higher rooms extending into the roof space.