Trisha Karthik

Exchange Studio

The design is a catalogue of strategies that acts as a bridge between the nuclear family apartment and co-operative housing typology, thus alleviating the stress of domestic labour by redistributing care responsibilities among community members. It addresses the inadequacies of existing apartments in Zurich which often lack spaces for communal care and respite for adults. This approach reimagines living arrangements to foster interconnectedness and support among neighbours and the method encourages self-agency in inhabitable spaces by surgical adaptations rather than building anew. The proposal includes strategic additions and connections between existing apartment buildings, utilising voids and transitional spaces. Interventions enhance intimacy by: 1. optimising existing shared spaces, 2. extending existing shared spaces and 3. creating new shared spaces. The catalogue thus contains 13 interventions that can be assembled using different combinations of 17 elements if applicable according to the parameters we observed on site. These promote community living and trust at varying levels of privacy thus they can be implemented phasally depending on residents’ needs. This flexibility ensures that the evolving dynamics of community life can be effectively accomodated over time.
In Collab with Varvara Sulema and Micki Soriano at ETH Zurich.