Page 25 - MODUS NEWS 01

EM2N
Mathias Müller and Daniel Niggli founded EM2N in 1997. EM2N’s goal is to produce architecture that is both powerful and personal, with the capability of developing its own character.
www.em2n.ch
All photographs, renderings and images by EM2N
Toni-Areal
The largest Swiss construction site
EM2N opened its office in 1997 in zürich, Switzerland. The firm first won several competitions for cultural, educational, and residential buildings in zürich and, among others, worked on several large-scale projects like the Viaduct Arches refurbishment and the Toni-Areal. EM2N has received many awards for its projects, including the Chicago Atheneum International Architecture Award for Theater 11 and the best.architects`09 award by zinnobergruen for the Public Records Office Canton Basel-Landschaft.
zurich West, and the Toni-Areal in particular, is rapidly evolving from an industrial district into a new urban space. Toni, a former milk-processing factory, is being transformed into a platform for education and culture.
In 2013 the renovated building will become a new home for the zurich University of Arts (zHdK) and for two departments of the zurich University of Applied Sciences (zHAW). The converted building will also include private culture and event areas and 90 apartments in a total volume of 520 500 cubic meters, all planned with Vectorworks® software.
Within this urban development, the Toni-Areal represents a central building block, combining several educational institutions previously located in
44 different locations. The challenge was to develop a concept for a built
structure almost the size of an entire neighborhood. The issue is the coexistence of different functions within such a building and their impacts on urban space.
The design proposes tackling the building with a kind of inner urbanism. The existing system of ramps in the north is read as a vertical boulevard and reinterpreted as the main artery. At the interface between the high- and low-rise development EM2N positioned a large hall conceived as a public space. These two elements are linked by a cascading sequence of halls and stairs. Inner addresses are created which locate individual functions like buildings in the city. At the same time the building becomes a component for urban planning in somewhat barren surroundings.
The unconventionally built outline conditions make this project an architectural challenge. To create an open framework for the campus activities, EM2N worked with different degrees of precision, scales, and tonalities, from huge public spaces to intimate and private areas.
The building as a city, the city as a building.
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