Industrial areas, tram depots and harbour facilities are usually based exclusively on the laws of logistics and traffic hydraulics. Spatial dramaturgy? Direction? Distance to the neighbour? None of it matters. Nevertheless – or precisely because of this – these areas fascinate us precisely because of their spatial conciseness. They show us that very few, but strong rules are enough to create characterful, atmospherically dense urban spaces. The former industrial city of Winterthur offers plenty of illustrative material, for example in the Lagerplatz area or on Katharina-Sulzer-Platz.
What a stroke of luck that no «tabula rasa» was made here when the buses moved out into Grüzefeld and instead, it was decided that soon people should be living here! Because everything is actually quite simple as long as the new residential buildings follow the same morphology as the old halls. Two halls have to make way for two rows of flats. A third hall – with workshops – loses its roof and becomes an alleyway. Another hall, «Urhalle», remains and becomes the centre of the complex as a children's house. The workshops – which are a good place to live – and the emblematic office building at the front of the street will also remain. In this way, with just a few interventions, a transport building is transformed into an urban place, a «forbidden city» into a public address, a garage for buses into a home for many. Two things are particularly important to us within this transformation: first, the public spaces should be understandable and legible. And second, by enabling any layperson to name them – square, courtyard, alley, path – the degree of public or private dedication becomes clear to them. This is crucial for the success of the appropriation.
