Learning from Zurich’s Co-Ops
Location: MIT’s City Arena, Samuel Tak Lee Building (MIT 9-255), Cambridge, MA
Speaker(s): Joshua Croom, Sheila Dillon, Kathleen Evans, Nia K. Evans, Declan Keefe, Susanne Schindler, Justin Steil
While Zurich is a center of global finance it also has a century-old commitment to public benefit and nonprofit housing, implemented through a cooperative model of resource sharing. Moreover, these cooperatives have been at the forefront of innovations in architecture and urban design. While the Zurich model cannot be fully transferred to cities in the United States, there are lessons to be learned from its long-standing commitment to nonspeculation within a for-profit real estate market and for the role of design in that work.
Susanne Schindler, an architect and urban historian who co-authored Cooperative Conditions: A Primer on Architecture, Finance and Regulation in Zurich, will describe key aspects of Zurich’s cooperative housing system. A panel of leading local officials and practitioners will discuss whether and how the Zurich approach could be applied or adapted for use in Boston and other communities in eastern Massachusetts.
Speakers:
Joshua Croom, Fund Development Fellow, Boston Ujima Project
Sheila Dillon, Chief of Housing, City of Boston
Kathleen Evans, Senior Director of Capital Deployment, MassHousing
Nia K. Evans, Executive Director, Boston Ujima Project
Declan Keefe, CoFounder, CoEverything
Susanne Schindler, Research Fellow, Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
Justin Steil, Associate Professor of Law and Urban Planning, MIT (moderator)
Co-Sponsors: MIT Morningside Academy for Design, MIT Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism
Watch the video:
Image: Exterior gallery at Heizenholz, Zurich, 2022. (Kraftwerk1 Wohn- und Baugenossenschaft; Adrian Streich Architekten). Photo credit: Rebekka Hirschberg.
