An urban and architectural overall concept in three stages is wanted for a former industrial printing area covering approximately 55’000 m2 close to the center of Zofingen by five invited architectural firms.

This should serve as a basis for a future revision of the zoning plan and define an appropriate construction and circulation concept for the area as well as define the urban density, building heights, open and public spaces, parking concept and commercial zones.

The area is divided by the main building in a northeastern strip along the railway and the southwestern construction zone. The basic idea of our project is to compress the current spatial vacuum on the area into a central public open space. It is reminiscent of the seam between residential settlement and industry zones, but with a positive connotation as a public park, which is a new link and identification space of the urban area of Zofingen’s center beyond the railway.

At the intersection of the new axesis a solitaire skyscraper is placed. It is a large orientation point for the path link to the station and the public park.

The southern area is interpreted as a residential field offering “urban living within the green”. The symbiosis of urban scale and density, as well as the quality of private green space in converted into a typology of an open, point-edge building placement, that can optimally accommodate the requirements of the three stages of the development.

Client : Swissprinters AG
Location : Zofingen
Project team : in collaboration with Corinna Menn Architecture LLC (ARGE), Jan Henrik Hansen, Reinhard Prikoszovich, Gaia Pelizzari, Regula Andriuet, Lorenz Eugster (landscape architect), David Opliger (traffic planer)
Status : invited competition, completed 2015