This project focused on the ground floor as well as the roofs of the Zürich architecture. The GAN helped to reveal the zurichness with a strong base on the ground floor, a geometric grid but also architectural inventions : the AI interpreted the shape of Zurich’s roofs as separate houses on the roof. They can also be considered as a part of the building rather than as separate houses. Indeed, there is a vertical link: the columns leave their marks on the roof by drawing the void between each “house”. The Site for the new building is located in a large street in Zurich. The building is located between this street and the park. We can observe that the roofs of the buildings next door are not flat but take up this particularity of zurichness that we saw in the interpolation. The GAN image shows a hierarchy in vertical and horizontal elements; The proportions of the elements were respected in order to extrude them in depth using a grasshopper script.
This building functions as a large house where all activities are gathered and distributed horizontally. Connected to the street, stores are located on the ground floor. On the second floor there is a large space with double height for working. Above this there is a shared space with communal functions like a living room or a kitchen. At roof level are the private lodgings, where each inhabitant receives a small house with his or her own room. This way, everyone can enjoy the view of Zurich.
The thickness of the roof allowed me to experiment with different shapes for each space (triangular, round) and its form benefited from the roof: light for the corridor or ventilation for the bathroom. Finally, the great thickness allows to welcome plants on the roof: They hide the view on the other rooms and offer a meeting point for the inhabitants. For the materials are faithful to the image of the GAN, where you can see a solid stone base on the ground floor. Then the columns stand out and take on an orange color: this color is the same as on the Rennweg 14 building, so the same orange plaster was chosen for the columns. The horizontal elements take up the gray stone. For the houses that stand out on the roof, another material language was used with a rather clear concrete slab and large bay windows with wooden frames.