On May 30, 1980 social unrest broke out in the streets of Zürich. Within this broader movement, many citizens demonstrated against housing shortages and city officials who seemed to be ignoring the problem. Protesters burned cars and smashed storefronts. Riot police shot teargas. Thousands were arrested.

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Today it’s hard to imagine this happening in Zürich, the elite global banking center with very high standards of living. However, these protests achieved something quite radical in terms of housing policy, urban development and architecture. Most importantly, they created the circumstances by which new experiments are now being realized. Beyond affordability, projects like Kalkbreite deliver a wide range of financial, design, sustainability, construction and participatory innovations with the stated purpose of inventing better forms of urban life.

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I sat down with Res Keller, one of the developers and co-founders of Kalkbreite, to find out why cooperative housing is working in Zürich, and how these methods might translate to other cities. Our conversation starts with some historical and political background, the beginning of Kalkbreite, then delves into financial structures, member participation and design processes used for the Kalkbreite development.

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Zürich-based cooperative projects mentioned in this conversation:

ABZ, 1916 | Dreieck, 1996 | Kalkbreite, 2015 | Mehr als Wohnen, 2015

ZollHaus, 2019 | Zwicky Süd, 2015

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Matt Lohry: Let’s step back to the beginning, in the 1980’s. Were you in the streets protesting?

Res Keller: Yes, yes. It was the start of a lot of people thinking about the city, what is our place and what we could do. This movement was a starting point for projects going on later like Dreieck. The whole new cooperative scene, like Kalkbreite, took off after Dreieck — which was the first of these new cooperatives. The protests and new project ideas also woke up the old cooperatives from the beginning of the 20th century.

ML: So you were building on a much deeper history of Switzerland’s worker housing cooperatives during the industrial revolution. Are any of them still active?

RK: Yes, the huge cooperatives like ABZ [Allgemeine Baugenossenschaft Zürich], the biggest one. They have maybe 5,000 flats. And they are also an important shareholder of Mehr Als Wohnen. There are about a dozen other huge old cooperatives. Today, cooperatives in Zurich have about 50,000 apartments and the population of Zürich is about 390,000 people. So about 10% of all housing. And, according to a city law, this amount has to increase to 33% by 2050. Zürich’s population voted for this referendum in 2011.

ML: Those numbers are interesting because in the United States, when people hear the word cooperative, there’s a lot of stigma. Or they think of an apartment co-op, which is a different system. Projects driven by a collective effort are thought of as fringe groups — hippies or socialists with impractical dreams — and are often discredited as a viable project that can have a large scale effect.

So it seems there are actually a substantial amount of cooperative apartments in Zürich which are providing a means of affordable living for a relatively large number of people. Is that fair to say?

RK: Yes, of course. I think the cooperatives in Zürich are becoming more effective, more popular. And cooperatives bring overall rents down — they show [market rate] developers that affordable housing is possible and desirable. So the effect is actually even larger.

ML: Can anyone make a cooperative? How does it work?

RK: In Switzerland you have to be at least 7 people, it’s the minimum. The basic principle is that you have on person one vote. With normal corporate enterprises, like Walmart or McDonald’s, you have votes connected to your amount of shares. In that corporate model the more shares you have the more power you have. With cooperatives it’s very different. It’s power per member.

ML: So I suppose this creates an equal playing field for all members. Everyone has an equal sense of ‘ownership’ in the project and their participation in the process.

RK: Yes, for example ABZ supports Kalkbreite by purchasing 100,000 CHF (104,000 USD) cooperative shares, really a huge share, and still they have only one vote. And most of the individual members of Kalkbreite have 1,000 CHF (1040USD) shares that also equals one vote. So that creates the cooperative democratic power dynamic.

ML: I see. So where was the starting point for Kalkbreite?

RK: When we started we knew we were a small group of people. And I’ve been living in the neighborhood for more than 20 years, in Dreieck, 300 meters away. Finally, we had the idea to make something here. The site was used for tram parking for more than one hundred years. It’s still here. But at the beginning it was just an open space and parking for trams. That was the reason you couldn’t build housing here. It was owned by the city and the tram parking was still in use. There was a popular initiative in 1975 which claimed affordable housing for the area when the trams would go away , but that never happened. So, the first thing we did was organize a public workshop.

ML: Around the idea of freeing up this land?

RK: Yes, we knew it was owned by the city of Zürich and they had to do something here because the tram organization was changing the railways.

ML: So something was going to happen regardless?

RK: Yes, something was going to happen and we knew they didn’t want to build housing here because they felt it was too complicated. So we just started a workshop. We invited the whole population. We published it in the newspapers, on the internet, and we said we have two days to meet and discuss what should be here on this site. What is the potential of the area? It was really huge, really cool. About 50 people came for two days of working and at the end we had a draft report.

ML: What kinds of people showed up? I suppose many of them where architects or developers?

RK: No, no, no. Well, we had a few architects and developers like me who organized the process. But we really just discussed as citizens, as neighbors. What did we really want to happen at this site? So we founded an association: Verein Kalkbreite. It was the result of this first workshop.

ML: So that was the beginning and you had 50 people.

RK: Yes, 50 people and they helped found the association. And we started lobbying. And it was just the right moment and just the last moment also because a few months later there was a re-election in the city parliament, June 2006, four months after the workshop.

In Zürich politics is quite accessible. Every member of the city’s government goes to work by bike and you know each other. If you are an engaged citizen, like me, you know them. You say hello. And also from time to time you write a letter to say, ‘Hey! You must listen to our idea!’ [laughter]

ML: The fact that you know your local representatives and you are involved in local politics seems to be a key underlying dynamic that makes a project like Kalkbreite possible in the first place.

RK: I think it’s very important, but not always easy. To compare, with Dreieck we fought for more than 8 years to make our own project. In 1986 we started to fight against the city of Zürich. At first, since the 1950’s they wanted to demolish part of the site to widen the road. That project failed so they made a plan to demolish the entire site for a new housing project. But we lived there and we said the houses are still good. And new houses are always more expensive.

Finally, in 1995 we bought the contract for a long-term land lease for a minimum of 60 years. So now we own the buildings but we lease the land. If the city wants the land back they have to pay the cooperative for the buildings.

ML: Right, because with Dreieck you invested in the buildings by renovating and expanding them, and constructing two new buildings.

RK: We had 8 years to try and get that with really hard fighting. It was really quite tough. With Kalkbreite it took just 4 months. So Dreieck was really a predecessor of Kalkbreite.

ML: So the political fighting you did with Dreieck paved the way for these new cooperative projects happening today.

RK: Yes, in the case of Kalkbreite the city department said, ok let’s take the risk and give this site to a cooperative and they started a competition between all the cooperatives of Zürich. All 200 could participate but only 5 that submitted.

ML: So the 50 people in the initial Kalkbreite association submitted a design proposal with building schematics?

RK: No, it was just paper. Just ideas. It was very simple. What do you want to make here? Who are you and how do you want to finance it?

ML: Did you have to confirm you had enough support and commitment from cooperative members?

RK: We said we are a cooperative in the founding process. We had the 50 people from the workshop and about 8 or 10 people who were more involved and organized the competition submission. And I wrote a letter to the banker I knew from Dreieck and he said if we win his bank would support the project! [laughter] And two cooperatives similar to Dreieck in the neighborhood supported our proposal by participating from the beginning and also giving money to Kalkbreite. So we officially founded the cooperative in June 2007, a half year after the competition and the city decided the winner of the competition in September 2007. So we were just a cooperative and had around 5,000 CHF (5200 USD). It was basically nothing. And we said yes, we want to build this project for 60 Million CHF (62 Million USD). And they said yes because you have the nicest ideas.

ML: The nicest ideas and probably a good financial proposal?

RK: Well, it was not so much about financing. It was about use. Who do we want to live here? We said we want to have a mixed population. Mixed in every aspect. Ethnically, income, age, expertise. All the ground floor shops have to be mixed. We want to live here and work here. And we want to have culture. So that was the beginning. We got it because we had the best ideas.

ML: Was there any other competition with real estate developers who operate on the free market?

RK: No here it was only cooperatives. It’s an unwritten law in the city of Zürich for the past 30 years, that you only work with non-profit organizations. They either give land to cooperatives or they [the State] build themselves, because we had a left wing social democratic government. Now it’s near equal in the parliament — you see here in Zürich even right-wing people think it’s clear that you have to create affordable housing! [laughter]

ML: In New York City private development companies have a lot more control over urban development. Real estate developers in NYC would find a site like this and pay millions of dollars to snatch it up immediately. It’s a system almost completely controlled by the private free market.

RK: But they couldn’t! [Bill] Deblasio wouldn’t give [vacant sites] away. Would he? [Laughter]

ML: Well, you might be surprised! The private market has a lot of control through both official regulations and also some behind the scenes political maneuvering to gain access to land. It’s a very competitive process because buildable land in desirable areas is not very abundant.

RK: But the State is not part of the free market. The State is our own, so the city is our property.

ML: Well, I agree with that idea in principle and that may be more of a reality here in Zürich. But in the United States, governments often work to preserve ‘freedoms’ of the free market, which really just makes it easier for private developers to act on the city, and harder for average citizens who do not have the power, money or influence to compete.

RK: But you have to fight for it.

ML: I agree, and there are groups that are. But I think there’s an overwhelming sense of powerlessness in the face of the political system and the real estate industry, at least in New York City. It might be different if New York City had a more progressive land use policy for city-owned sites.

RK: Yes, you know housing cooperatives have been supported by the city of Zürich for over one hundred years. And it started with a huge housing shortage and they said, we have to build a lot of housing! So at that time it was not a social democratic majority but they still said we need to support cooperatives, give them land, et cetera.

These first laws were made in 1906 to install a system of exchange and control. Then in the 20’s and 30’s Zürich had a social democratic majority, a time of financial crisis, and all the housing prices collapsed. Lots of land was available for no money. So the social democrats in power at the time said lets buy it. They ended up buying many sites in the city from private owners. Then in the next 60 years they have held the land for cooperatives. It was a wise political move they did in the 1930’s.

ML: Do they ever sell it to private developers?

RK: Yes, now they do and sometime through exchanges and land swaps. So the guy who said ‘ok let’s give a contract to Kalkbreite’ was actually rightwing, but somewhat liberal, and he’s an entrepreneur. So he saw that we also are entrepreneurs, because it was an ambitious project. I think that social democrats wouldn’t have given it to us because we did not have enough money and we posed too much risk. And to found something like this in New York City you’d have to be a real entrepreneur! [laughter]

ML: So now I understand the initial context of Kalkbreite’s founding, the historical aspects, the political fighting at the beginning. But can we take a deeper dive into the financing of this project? I think it will reveal more ideas that may or may not translate to other cities.

RK: Yes, that’s an interesting aspect of the whole story. It’s part of that law package the city of Zürich made 110 years ago. They said if you create a cooperative, and if you get land owned by the city and if we have this contract and this exchange, you only have to have 6% of the capital yourself. That’s really nice.

ML: So the cooperative only has to put up 6% of the money themselves.

RK: Yes, and normally in Switzerland you have to have 20%.

ML: I see so it lowers the barrier of entry.

RK: Yes that’s true because it’s otherwise very difficult to get this money.

ML: So where does the remaining money come from, a bank loan?

RK: So we had a problem from September 2007 to January 2012: the planning process. If you have all the permissions, zoning approvals, commercial tenants, building code, the bank will usually give you all the money. And this was difficult. It took four and a half years that required internal expenses. We had to pay taxes, we had to pay ourselves for time, rent for the studio, et cetera. So in this first phase of planning we needed 6 million CHF to collect ourselves.

ML: Six million to complete the initial planning of the cooperative. So how did you get 6 million?

RK: So we got two million by ourselves. I sent letters to 40 or 50 other cooperatives in Zürich which amounted to about one-half million. Then we got 1.5 million from the city. Part of the deal for us to get this site from the city was to make 40% commercial space, and normally cooperatives don’t want to include commercial space because it’s complicated, it’s the devil. They just want to make housing. So the city said let’s give it to a cooperative, but maybe we have to help out a little. So they decided to give a financial credit to this initial development stage of the project of 3.5 million CHF.

ML: So was that in the form of a loan?

RK: Yes, in the form of a loan from the city. And we convinced them for us to be able to spend about 2 million CHF of this 3.5 million CHF as part of the project development phase. And we told them, once we got the money from the bank we will pay you back. So, then we needed to get the remaining 2 million loaned from the bank. We showed the project to 7 or 8 banks, many of them said, oh that’s quite nice…lovely, but 2 million! Before you start! [Laughter]

ML: So how did you justify it?

RK: Well, we didn’t have to justify it, we just said we need it. We said if you want this project to happen just give it. And only two banks were interested. We primarily worked with Zürcher Kantonalbank, a State bank.

ML: Who financed the construction of the building?

RK: It was 75% bank loan, 15 % pension fund of the city — it’s part of the contact deal. 6% from member shares and individual private loans.

You see, each cooperative member can give personal money into a cooperatively controlled bank account. You can take it back after at the end of the year, and you even gain some interest. Each member has an individual account that is pooled into a common account. Cooperative members can then use the shared account to make purchases for personal items. These are loans provided to the cooperative and it works like a bank.

ML: So now you are in the process of paying these loans off with money generated from the residential and commercial rents?

RK: Yes, we have about 3.8 million CHF (3.9 million USD) of rent income here at Kalkbreite annually, which is very reliable.

ML: So when did the design process start?

RK: It was 2009, almost three years after our first workshop. It was quite an amazing story because in collaboration with the city we had to make an international architecture competition. Because we are partners in the project. They have 20% for the existing tram depot and we have 80% for the building we constructed. So we were also partners in publishing this competition. In fact, it was a requirement of our partnership. And the city is bound to GATT-WTO contracts that say the proposal must be published internationally.

We had participants from Mexico, India and many other places. And it was an anonymous competition so when it was time for jury we did not know the designer. When we opened the packet it was only then we found out the design project was awarded to Müller Sigrist Architects, who’s studio is only about 300 meters away from here. It was clear they understood our ideas.

ML: So was there a lot of design collaboration between the Kalkbreite cooperative and Müller Sigrist?

RK: After a certain point they took the lead on architectural design. They are the architects, we are the developers, the organizers. But their starting point was our initial ideas about how to use it, how to live and work. We always said, for instance, that we need to have a lot of common spaces and we have to have participation.

ML: And they interpreted that by creating gardens, cafes, playgrounds…

RK: Yes. For example, we said we don’t want to have individual balconies because we have public space on the ground level and on the roofs. And it was about forcing people, a little bit, to be there publicly, to use it. Because if you have a huge flat, a huge balcony, et cetera, you never use the common space. And you see each other. You interact.

ML: It’s interesting for me to hear this relationship between the broad goals of the project determined by the cooperative and how that translated through the design process.

RK: Right, so we had two areas of participation. The first was concept — that original workshop in 2006. And then the second was the phase of writing the brief for the international competition. These were relatively simple ideas but we had to get the general program out in square meters for all the spaces so the architects in the competition could understand the design. They needed to create building plans and a quite detailed design. This took about 9 months for us to create. These were the two phases of project design, which we also had to do for the financial investment plan through the same process.

And at a certain point we stopped. So you ask, who designed the project? After our initial input was given — our guidelines and desires — it was only the architects. We had a small team to lead the architects, to help make decisions about materials…do we use concrete, or wood, et cetera. Thousands of decisions. But this was a small group within the cooperative of about 5 people. We didn’t make the other participation about detailed architectural design. It makes everyone crazy. It’s not a good kind of participation.

But we made a third kind of participation in 2011. It was to design the ongoing living phase after moving in. We had questions like, how do you want to manage the common space? How do you want to participate in living at Kalkbreite?

ML: Right, it seems like a very important process to keep a cooperative going and for residents to have real ownership in the project.

RK: Yes, I think that was the best idea we had. We invited all members of the cooperative, which by this time was about 400. And we said everyone who is interested can form a working group and decide how to manage various aspects of the building.

ML: Was it difficult to get people to come together?

RK: Not really because we had ongoing events where we discussed issues that everyone cared about. To ask questions like, how much personal space do we need as an individual? I organized this one and I invited a Benedict monk, a person with a huge flat, and a gipsy woman who lives in a caravan. And they all discussed the issue. [laughter]

We said we want to reduce the use of individual space because it’s been growing for the last 30 years. We have economical but also ecological reasons to reduce space consumption. We were the first to say it and all the media was interested in it. No developer around here had an idea about reducing space like this before. So we always made sure to have contact between members and surrounding neighbors.

ML: I imagine it all gets easier when members have a real sincere feeling they have the power to influence the project.

RK: Yes, here is another example: Durring the Dreieck project we missed an opportunity to expand the idea to form more projects. But something interesting happened in the middle of planning for Kalkbreite. The Zollhaus project [request for proposals] came up in the middle of this and we said we do not have the time or energy to devote to this great opportunity. It’s really a prime site in a more central part of the city.

But then a small group of cooperative members stepped up and said we will lead the project! So we said of course we, as the Kalkbreite cooperative, will support the proposal. And we won it! But it was really a product of this participatory process where people have a say in the project. And now the cooperative is living and growing and changing because of this next project. And now it feels important to come in the middle of the phase of Kalkbreite so there is not a down phase where there is nothing happening. No momentum lost. And this is what we are working on now.

ML: So, now the Kalkbreite building is finished and all the apartments are filled. How does this membership process work?

RK: If you want to rent here, either an apartment or a commercial space, you have to become a member and get shares. Shares are determined by how much space you have. This restaurant space we are sitting in [Bebek] is quite huge. It requires a lot of shares. But anyone can be part of the cooperative and hold shares even if they do not have a space. The minimum buy-in is 1,000 CHF (1,040 USD). So, this year the Kalkbreite Cooperative is 10 years old. And now we have about 1,500 members. And there are about 200 that actually live here, with about 60 children.

ML: What incentive do people have who are members but cannot currently live here?

RK: Well some of them are simply interested in what we are creating here. And some of them are interested in living here later. We do not have a waitlist, that’s not a good idea. If we have a free apartment we just publish it, but only to members. And this is open to anyone because anyone can become a member. For instance, we have 8% from African countries. We have 8% from Germany because they are the largest immigrant group to Zürich.

ML: I’ve also been studying baugrouppen developmets in Berlin and they get criticized a bit because it relies on a more homogenous group. It tends to be a middle or upper-middle class system and it tends to be less diverse. So, when cooperative housing is talked about in the context of NYC this question of inclusion is one of the first points of skepticism because, as you know, NYC is one of the most diverse places in the world.

RK: Yes, on that point I think you should look at Mehr als Wohnen. It’s even more diverse then here, maybe about 40% foreigners from different backgrounds.

ML: So earlier you said Dreieck was a kind of spark that ignited the interests in the social moments and protests from the 80’s. Do you see Kalkbreite as a similar kind of spark creating a enthusiasm for future cooperatives?

RK: In Dreieck we decided to make a cooperative just for Dreieck, to make it good and really nice for ourselves. But we didn’t think about what it will be in 20 years. And it was a huge goal to achieve all that new building and renovation. It was really a crazy story.

When we were finished we said ok, it’s nice what will we do now? What’s next? And maybe we just missed the point to go further, to change and to expand the idea. But now Kalkbreite, Mehr als Wohnen and Zwicky Süd have parallel stories. Yes, the sparks were earlier with Dreieck and now you have some real fires.