Choosing Family

The book «Choosing Family» by Francesca T. Royster proposes an understanding of family that goes beyond heteronormative reproduction. Francesca and her wife Annie foster and later adopt a child. While transforming their queer household, Francesca reflects on her grandmother Cillies life. In the 1930s, when large numbers of African Americans migrated to Chicago from the South, she transformed her house into a boarding home, stretching the boundaries of family.

In Zurich, the daily lives of foster families revolve around care and belonging, with a strong sense of fluidity. The children grow up in multiple households. Most are between 14 and 17 years old, an age where belonging extends to friendships and other relationships outside childhood homes. For foster carers, the complex needs of the children and the pace of changes in their homes can be challenging. Most children stay for under a year, up to three children are placed at the same time. Housing in Zurich can hardly accommodate shifting or alternative dynamics, as it is built around normative family images.

ZehnZimmer is fluid housing that encourages community among foster families. Situated on Bauhallengasse in Kreis 4, the neighbourhood offers many professional support institutions around. As an extension on two adjacent buildings, it integrates foster family units into existing communities. All floors are interconnected by an external circulation, linked by a terrace.

Allowing the households to grow and shrink, the added units can vary from two to seven bedrooms. Different separations can be set in the spatial layer that distributes to all private bedrooms. By reimagining entrances, private kitchens, and circulation as interconnected, the boundaries between the units widen. The space in between changes depending on the constellations formed; from a large réduit to collective work space or an extended living room, where know-how, time and material resources are shared.

Project by: Alessandra Moro, Jules Henz, Kristina Lehtinen

Teaching team: Anna Puigjaner, Dafni Retzepi, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Jo Baan, Lisa Maillard, Luis Úrculo, Pol Esteve Castelló, He Shen

Spring 2024