Cooperative Conditions

Overview & Synopsis

Recent cooperative housing projects in Zurich have become icons of architectural design internationally. But what makes innovation in nonprofit housing possible within a largely for-profit real estate market? What has enabled Zurich’s lasting commitment to nonspeculation for more than one hundred years? How does built architecture partake in these processes — and how does its partaking expand the definition of architecture? “Cooperative Conditions” answers these questions in a systematic investigation of eight conditions that have allowed Zurich’s cooperative housing to thrive under the principles of public benefit, or “Gemeinnützigkeit”. By analyzing specific financial and regulatory instruments, their history, and their intersection with the built environment, this primer shows that the exceptional quality in Zurich’s cooperative housing is possible because of, not despite, the commitment to nonspeculation.