Addressing the challenge of scaling non-speculative development that provides a critical counterpoint to the inflationary pressures of the private market, our project reimagines how a mixed-use cooperative housing model could be conceived at a neighbourhood scale. Across Zürich, centrally located ‘odd lots’ represent an unrealised opportunity for smart densification. Applying iterative digital planning tools to open spatial datasets, we are automating the search for promising sites and revealing the latent qualities of underused land. Our project involves a strategy to network a series of architectural interventions on odd lots, bypassing the need to compete with speculative developers to acquire large properties. Guided by a concept of the ‘extended home’, the approach disaggregates and disperses the shared amenities found in recent cooperative developments across a cluster of smaller mixed-use buildings, situated within a comfortable walking distance. From libraries to co-working facilities, communal eating spaces to wellness retreats, these collective resources are integrated with affordable housing and managed through a digital platform. Redrawing the boundaries of domestic space, the project rethinks how housing can contribute to vibrant neighbourhoods and inclusive urban communities by encouraging approaches to sharing beyond the dwelling or building, and externalising patterns of circulation in a way that expands possibilities for social encounter by blurring the distinction between public and private. Inspired by the radical early history of Swiss cooperatives and the renewed interest in ‘Decentralised Autonomous Organisations’ (DAOs), the project builds on ‘loosely joined’ approaches that already exist in Zürich through networked self-managed building communities like Wogeno, in the process championing long-term local investment, strengthening neighbourhood-scale connection through the stability and solidarity of community stakeholders, and recirculating social profits locally. At a systems level, we are exploring how blockchain technology can be deployed to establish ‘trustless’ and tokenised participation in decentralised governance, enable efficiencies through fast-tracked planning, and facilitate peer-to-peer fractional investment that would increase access to equity capital, collectivise the benefits accrued by members paying below-market rents, and reduce the reliance on bank mortgages as the major source of debt financing for new projects.

The response of the tech sector to the challenges posed by the financialization of housing globally has ignored the potential for digital tools to contribute to systemic change. With this project, we see the ability to harness data and design at a neighbourhood scale as a pathway to scaling non-speculative models, embed a genuine mix of uses, and resist the drift towards ‘hotelized’ developments. On an urban level, Andreas Hofer describes how cooperative projects in Zürich contribute to a ‘learning system’ that collectively shapes the future of the city. This extends beyond typological experiments to encompass the intangible outcomes of participatory governance and common property. Positioning cooperatives as an alternative ‘urban interface’, this project plays an educational role that connects urban governance systems and localised investment flows to broader concepts of citizenship, and provides opportunities for citizens to collaboratively imagine and prototype alternative futures.