Cooperative Conditions

Zurich is a center of global finance. Its financialized real estate influences not only the rise of rent and property prices but also methods of extracting value from housing and residents. And yet, Switzerland's largest city has a century-old commitment to public benefit and nonprofit housing, implemented through a cooperative model of sharing resources. Even more strikingly, cooperatives have been at the forefront of architectural and urban design innovation for a broad mix of uses and household formations. Eight specific conditions have enabled a long-standing commitment to nonspeculation within Zurich's for-profit real estate market. Through its original reading of contemporary and historic projects, Cooperative Conditions makes tangible the interplay between architectural, regulatory, and financial instruments in housing. In doing so, aspects of Zurich's cooperative model become transferrable to other places.