Zwicky Site Plots A6-A9 Wallisellen is a second prize proposal by EM2N for Halter AG designed in 2014. It is located in Wallisellen Switzerland in an urban setting. Its scale is large with a surface of 16.000 sqm. Key materials are ceramic and concrete. The concept of plaza is explored.
The formal textile factory forms the nucleus for the development of a new urban district. Working on the basis of the existing buildings’ industrial logic we develop three simple volumes which, through their spatial and atmospheric impact, strengthen the place and anchor the new in the old. For the student residence and the housing for the elderly we propose collective typologies with communal outdoor and circulation spaces: a five-storey courtyard type as a collective student residence and two sculptural elongated buildings to accommodate the elderly, which relate in terms of form and scale to the existing industrial buildings. The different building heights and the various front buildings and projections at ground floor level develop an exciting interplay among the new buildings and between them and the old industrial fabric. The attractive spatial situations that we find among the existing buildings, which alternate between breadth and constriction, large and small, are in this way newly interpreted and continued.