The Baugenossenschaft im Gut can be understood as a case study for a very specific moment in the process of urban densification in Zurich. A low density garden city of the 1950s, originally built on the outskirts of the city, today a fragment of past urban ideals located centrally in Zurich, seems to offer the perfect conditions to be defined as a ‚Verdichtungsgebiet‘. An area where the built substance can seemingly not take up the demand of a growing urban population and therefore has to be replaced.
The fact that the future of the area is mapped out that clearly and seemingly without any resistance, makes one believe that the values of the built substance are very clear, that the narrative deciding over the future of the built substance commonly used is predetermined and inevitable. The potential for densification seems to exceed the value of the existing social structure, the biodiversity or energetic thoughts.
But dealing with the existing always means being confronted with a larger complexity, exceeding that of only the current land use and its potential (Ausnützungsreserven).
What are the tools to think of an inclusive city, where do we need to destroy, where can we transform.
What other actors, what other lenses can we put on to define the value of the existing, what other perspectives define or should define the process of densification which could ultimately determine how to proceed with the existing?
