Zurich Europaallee (competition)

Status: 2011 (competition entry)
Location: Zurich, Switzerland

Client: Schweizerische Bundesbahnen SSB
Value: Confidential

 

The proposed building aims to implement the objectives set up in the masterplan to create a landmark building that clearly signals the new quarter of Europaalle and reflects its identity as a new metropolitan quarter. The strong tectonic form of the new building will signal the new quarter from the arrival to the main train station, one of the main gateways to the city and its surrounding quarters, and will have a strong presence on the new Corbusier-Platz.

In order to break down the massing and height of the building, the edge of the floors are expressed every two floors by bringing to the edge the floors and suppressing behind the vertical blades the intermediary floors, this allows the vertical openings to take on a grander and more civic scale than a typical residential or office building. This classical proportion and order is also repeated at the upper set back volume with a grander order of three floors comprising two floors of offices and the open plant room on the roof. This upper volume is completed by a grand logia toward Corbusier-Platz.

At ground floor level, toward Corbusier-Platz, the volume is “carved” to create a double height restaurant and reception for the offices above, allowing Europaalle Strasse and Corbusier-Platz to extend inside the building and allowing the restaurant to spill over the public realm.

Large openings allow views through the office reception and restaurant toward the platform and the railway lines on the north side. A more contained bookshop and café complete the public programme at ground floor level.

The building aims to symbolically relates to he landscape and geology of the city through its tectonic form and the use for it’s façade of a local stone: Bollinger Sandstone hell used by the Roman Empire, it is also found on several of the landmark civic buildings of the city like the famous Kunsthaus or Grossmünster church. This robust and light textured stone wraps the vertical pillars and the horizontal edge of the slabs, the deep reveals and the light color of the slab allow the sun to cast shadows and bring the building to life, contrasting the different elevations and their subtle geometrical shifts.