Bookpresentation: Cooperative Conditions
Boekpresentatie
“Whether architect, politician or developer, for decades now, international housing professionals have been admiring the quality of cooperative housing in Zurich, which remains affordable for lower income groups thanks to cooperative developers’ commitment to non-speculation. “Quality”, however, is not only about floor plans or façade typologies or sustainable building practices. The outstanding feature of housing cooperatives is their ability to articulate and implement concepts of living together. These include dwellings for non-traditional households; a programmatic mix of living, working and commercial uses; as well as urban porosity in the form of urban exterior spaces and collective interior rooms accessible to a range of different user groups.
To plan and maintain what happens in front of the apartment door and brings people together—precisely what makes up “More than Housing”—is what constitutes the quality of housing in a society that is becoming ever more polarized. But this is exactly what market-rate developers and social housing providers alike curtail in the name of “cost efficiency”. So, which regulatory, financial and normative framework conditions render “More than Housing” possible in the Zurich cooperative model?”