Situated in Zurich, Switzerland, KraftWerk1 is a housing co-op with a difference, which aims to fundamentally redefine urban living and working. 500-person strong, members of the co-op pool their resources to provide childcare, building maintenance, car-sharing, and even food and entertainment. Large apartments accommodate 15 to 20 people each, in suites of rooms and shared spaces. Each extended ‘household’ chooses its own members, organizational structure, standards of equipment, and is self-financing. There are numerous work-spaces configured as studios, retail spaces, and offices. Members even contribute to an internal system of social welfare – a ‘solidarity contribution’ – which reduces the rent for those residents on low incomes. The entire initiative is an explicit model addressing the crisis of a society based on waged work, where that work is increasingly scarce, and nuclear families, where even that social structure is fragmenting.

The idealism of the project has been realised only unevenly. The relative expense of living in Kraftwerk1 has deterred people of lower income. The ecological aspirations of the project are still at an early stage. Many of the residents work in the wider economy of the city and operate independently of the collective. It is perhaps most successful as a demonstration of the possibilities of collective living, which will always be an unfinished and continually evolving project.