EM2N Architekten

Toni-Areal . Zurich

EM2N Architekten . photos: © Goran Potkonjak . + Allreal

On the Toni Site a former milk-processing factory is to be transformed into a platform for education, culture and living.

Within the urban development of the destrict and within the transition of Switzerland’s university landscape the Toni Site represents a central building block. We assume that this is primarily an urban planning and a programmatic problem. Our design proposes tackling this sizable project – a built structure almost the size of an entire neighbourhood – with a kind of inner urbanism. On the outside the existing system of ramps is read as a vertical boulevard and reinterpreted as the main circulation. Inside, inner addresses are created that locate individual functions like buildings in the city. To create an open framework we work with different degrees of precision, scales and tonalities and with a range extending from huge public spaces to intimate private ones. The building as city, the city as building.

Dates study commission 2005 (1st prize), planning 2005–2009, construction 2008, ongoing
Size 108,000 m2
Costs CHF 535 Mio. (Investment costs)
Client Allreal Toni AG represented by Allreal Generalunternehmung AG