Renovation school building Wengi, Kernstrasse, Zurich 2010, planner selection process 1st prize

• Planner selection process 1st prize 
• Building: School building Wengi
• Year of construction: 1906
• Client: Amt für Hochbauten (AHB)
• Assignment: Restoration and refreshment
• Project handling: Christine Hotz Steinemann, Luz Rigendinger
• Services: Planning and realization

The Wengi school building is located in the densely populated Aussersihl district of Zurich. After an addition to a gymnasium in the 1950s and a conversion in the 1970s, the building appears very heterogeneous. The suspended ceiling and the postauto-yellow components are more reminiscent of an anonymous administrative building than a school building from the turn of the century.

Within a 9-month planning and execution phase, the necessary measures for the requirements of the Viventa technical school were determined and the building was handed over at the start of the school year. The building project was taken as an opportunity to develop an integrative renovation concept that gives the rooms a new expression without completely blurring the fractures of the previous eras. In this way, the building can continue to exist as a contemporary school building with the use of modest resources.

Photography: Stefan Jäggi