02.

Denner Fluid
Reproductive Care

Group work with: Anna Ozhiganova, Armand Zanota
Fall Semester 2023

Chair of Architecture and Care
Prof. Anna Puigjaner

Teaching team: Anna Puigjaner, Jo Baan, Lisa Maillard, Luis Úrculo, Pol Esteve Castelló, He Shen

1/4 Overview, © Luis Úrculo

2/4 Hanging plans, © Luis Úrculo

3/4 Performance element, © Luis Úrculo

4/4 Performance projection, © Luis Úrculo

Conservatorism is pronounced in Zurich. However, certain institutions such as Trans Safety Emergency Fund (TSEF), Checkpoint Zurich and Regenbogenhaus provide support for marginalised communities, including those outside the cisgender paradigm. The TSEF, notably, aims to cover basic living costs, medical bills, and facilitate relocation to safer environments for trans individuals. The fund is supported by the voguing house of B. Poderosa, whose events act as fundraisers. However, lacking a physical space constraints TSEF’s potential.

To address this gap, an abandoned Denner building is envisioned as an interim multi-purpose extension, complementing the aforementioned institutions. Located in Schwamendingen, this reimagined space will offer both permanent and temporary housing for non-cisgender people, alongside spaces for collective reproductive labour and public events.

Ground floor

On the second floor, private facilities and unnecessary partitions are reconsidered, making way for shared spaces. To reveal spaces that were until now just too modern, pragmatic and rational, fragments of corridors, punctual walls and unnecessary wide hallways would be removed, all within the acknowledgment of the existing structure. Ten rooms and four shared bathrooms are introduced, all varying in size, with larger rooms serving as platforms for shared programs.

The strategy is similar on the first floor. We remove some walls. And add some others. The first floor, once an office level, will host a working area, a collectively accessible kitchen, and ten varied-sized rooms. The more visible and preponderant intervention regards the entrance. We refuse this status and propose something the canon would not describe as “entrance”, but more as an amorphous threshold, a true room in itself, to get ready, dress up, and go out to the world. This wide threshold is a celebration of that moment, filled with clothes and all items needed to prepare to go out.

The ground floor of the building is mostly kept as it is. It already stands as an ideal canvas for public events, distinguished by its high ceiling and glazed facade.

1/2 First floor, existing

2/2 First floor, post transformation

The resulting project is hybrid, refusing categorizations but instead embracing a liminal attitude flexible enough to engage with the multifaceted situation. At its core, it is an acceptance of canonical disharmony, sprouting through the cracks of the once-shining facade of modernity. It is no longer about the object itself, but about how a building can function like an infrastructure to open up narratives and serve as a material case-study to be used as an argument in contemporary discussions.

Street facing façade

Kitchen

Entrance

Ground floor possibilities (non-exhaustive)

Ground floor possibilities (non-exhaustive)

Ground floor possibilities (non-exhaustive)

Ground floor possibilities (non-exhaustive)

More infos on: https://c-a-r-e.xyz/work/denner-fluid

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