Living Room*

The project asks whether the living room can be displaced from the domestic-private sphere to the public realm, becoming a public care infrastructure that distributes leisure and reproductive labor.

While housing shortages and rising rents increasingly restrict access to housing, the project proposes an alternative spatial condition beyond the logic of the private dwelling.

Situated on the pedestrian bridge connecting the Hardturm parking structure to Zurich's tram network, the intervention reclaims a space designed exclusively for circulation. Inspired by Marcel Lachat's La Bulle (Geneva, 1972), it adopts a parasitic strategy, attaching lightweight timber structures to the existing bridge to create places for rest, encounter, and observation while preserving its primary function.

Constructed from a reusable timber frame clad with waste-wood MDF panels, the additions accommodate both human and non-human inhabitants.

Suspended rooms invite commuters to pause, while cavities beneath integrated seating provide nesting spaces for pigeons, extending care beyond the human realm. The project domesticates infrastructure, transforming a bridge of transit into an urban living room where movement gives way to presence and public space becomes a site for interdependencies.

Spring 2026

Project by: Isabel Schildknech, Marlène Perren, Ryan Hasan, Valerio Arumugam

Teaching team: Anna Puigjaner, Dafni Retzepi, Paule Perron,Valentina Noce, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Lisa Maillard, Pol Esteve Castelló, He Shen

Images 1, 4: Luís Úrculo

Images 2, 3, 5, 6: Pierre Marmy