Care Kiosk

Evolving from paternalistic institutions to a diversified, more contemporary understanding of fostering, forms of childcare have shapeshifted over the last few centuries. The once visible othering of orphans enforced by strong and representative façades has now dissolved into a more scattered and reticent network of care.

Non-nuclear households fostering a child face increased dependency on city-implemented public care. The housing unit and its walls no longer serve as the border of care but become a membrane allowing for internal and external care work. The static character of built architecture calls for a radical rethinking and abolishing of the existing. Expanding the understanding of the physical entity of a household is replaced by neighbourhood-spanning networks of care.

In Schwamendingen, the care network passes by a kindergarten, church centre, and daycare facilities, supporting non-nuclear families. Serving a significant population, particularly single-parent households – 8.4% of the residents in Kreis 12 compared to Zürich’s 5.9% average. However, existing structures of care suffer from restrictive opening hours and accessibility barriers, excluding many caregivers.

From adoption to fostering, from co-parenting to co-caring, our institution provides a supportive framework for single caregivers. Enabling points of positive friction, the institution tackles the predominant FINTA-informed responsibility of caretaking and pushes a shift in the understanding of taking care of oneself through taking care of others. Providing a room to be appropriated, everchanging, and with fluid borders, the institution aims to create a simultaneousness in care. A simultaneousness in taking care and being taken care of. A simultaneousness in providing and being provided. A simultaneousness that doesn’t exist. But a simultaneousness that insists.

Project by: Ulla von Zahn, Florian Frommherz, Reto Kluser

Teaching team: Anna Puigjaner, Jo Baan, Lisa Maillard, Luis Úrculo, Pol Esteve Castelló, He Shen

Design Studio: Autumn 2023