When Urgency Knocks at the Door

Almost 350,000 m2 of commercial space are empty in the canton of Geneva. Wouldn’t it be urgent to reinvest these vacant spaces and rethink our models of housing accessibility, as well as our ways of conceiving living together on a building and neighborhood scale? Cooperative housing is a popular answer today, and while it offers many advantages, it remains very limited in terms of access, both financially – the price per square meter to invest is now mainly affordable for the middle class – and in terms of physical access to the building for the rest of the neighborhood. This project proposes to rethink living together both inside and outside the building, in order to build a solid, supportive social fabric with minimal intervention on the structure, while allowing for participative construction. In addition to offering communal spaces for residents, the building also features a first floor and roof open to the neighborhood’s remnants. Ideally located close to the station and the city center, it also incorporates workshops to make it a place for professional exchange.