The new recycling center for Zurich was an exercise in re-use. How can we plan with re-used building materials within the framework of a competition?

We propose a recycling-center that becomes a public and open city infrastructure for all its inhabitants. We believe that a new recycling center should, or rather must, react to larger challenges than the mere demand for an optimal organization: We keep around one third of the plot unsealed. The project is intended as a flexible structure and can be adapted for alternative future uses. The main structure, as well as a large part of the building envelope, is planned with re-used building parts. The roof of the building is used for rainwater collection and energy production through photovoltaic panels.

The required program is organized in horizontal layers in plan: The entire recycling center is compactly organized as a flexible and open hall on the south edge of the plot. The entire insulated volume with workshops, social spaces and offices is organized on the upper floor. This organization leaves a large part of the plot free – as a publicly accessible space for people, plants, animals, and insects. The vegetation provides shade, helps to reduce heat, and creates space for diverse habitats in a largely industrial context. The design of the landscape in horizontal layers makes possible, that the hall of the recycling center is not fenced off, but only closed with large roller shutters at night. The rest of the plot remains always accessible.

With this project, we are pursuing a strategy for the re-use of building parts, that allows a certain flexibility by not only relying on very specific mines. Rather, we are pursuing an adaptive strategy which allows to work with frequently occurring building parts. Accordingly we start from three three different types of re-use mines:

1) Specific mines: mines that are secured (e.g. a provided catalogue of the city of Zurich) from which specific components can be used.
2) Generic mines: mines that are identified and partially secured, typologies that are often dismantled in Switzerland (e.g. warehouses, in-situ concrete elements, wood beams).
3) Existing industries: Already functioning circular economies that can provide basic equipment such as toilets or timber.

Project: »Recycling Center Juch-Areal – An Exercise in Re-Use«
Medium: Competition with pre-qualification
Architecture: Architekturgenossenschaft C/O – ANA, Arthur De Buren + Charles Capré, Milena Buchwalder, Ella Esslinger; in Collaboration with TRIBU architecture
Team ANA: Lukas Fink, Tobias Fink
Landscape: Forster Paysage
Re-Use Experts: Matériuum
Structural Engineers: Normal Office Sàrl, Peter Braun
Traffic Planning: IBV Hüsler AG, Luca Urbani
Renderings: Studio Salto
Location: Zürich, CH
Year: 2022