Update: we will be moving into ETH's VOB Building in Voltastrasse, one of its villas soon up for sale
Life is full of contradictions; reality has long surpassed fiction in terms of credibility. This also holds true for our efforts to tackle climate change. As public institutions and authorities with large real estate portfolios commit to self-declared deadlines for reduced CO₂ emissions, they also find themselves in the inconvenient presence of a number of ‘underperforming' buildings. Bringing these buildings up to standard demands capacity and time, which these public institutions seem unwilling to invest. As a quick fix, they usually decide to sell them on the private market.
In this master thesis, we turn to these buildings – the ‘Outcasts' – and ask ourselves: what alternative strategies can prevent large-scale transfers of public property to the private market? Could institutional ‘Outcasts’ become a driving force for a more equitable and inclusive development of cities, anchored in affordability and accessibility, rather than contributing to the ongoing practice of property speculation? Can public institutions take up responsibility in the public interest, and avoid repeating the same mistake in the name of sustainability by replacing the speculation of today by the 'green' speculation of tomorrow?
To tackle this more concretely, we will engage with our own institution, ETH Zurich, and with a significant number of residential buildings that are listed to be removed from its portfolio. Designed for a use that no longer complies with the three focus areas – teaching, research and knowledge transfer – and in need of urgent renovation to improve their energy performance by 2030, these buildings are not a priority for ETH Real Estate. Yet, instead of selling these buildings to the market and making this public property private, we ask: can these ETH Outcasts play a role in the Swiss search for housing the projected population growth of one million by 2050? And, can they contribute to Switzerland’s ecological goals set for 2050?
Let us for a moment imagine the following:
ETH Zurich, acknowledging its role and responsibilities as a powerful property owner in Zurich, decides to donate its Outcasts to community-driven, anti-speculative foundations such as PWG and Edith Maryon. These ETH donations come with a clear condition: the buildings will be treated as research projects in the form of living labs. Renovation and reconfiguration will happen as testing grounds for new ways of living together, while also rethinking our comfort standards.
We will visit and research exemplary dwelling practices in Switzerland, listening to and learning from places and people. We will move our diploma studio into one of the Outcasts, the VOB building at Voltastrasse 24. Through in-situ interventions and performative actions, we will expand on our understanding of what ‘home’ can be, and apply this understanding to propose new ways of dwelling in these former institutional buildings. By considering different bodies, uses and subjectivities, across different generations, needs, collectivities and domesticities, we will dwell with outcasts, while proposing a future in which public institutions such as ETH act upon their agency in and for the city to which they belong.
In case of questions, feel free to ask them to Géraldine Recker here
Poster with more info here
Enrolment here
In collaboration with Chair of Art in Space and Time (Prof. Rosa Barba)