To demolish and rebuild or to renovate? This is a question that many housing cooperatives currently face. Most of their estates were built in the first half of the last century at the edges of the cities in line with the ideals of the garden city movement and would require an extensive renovation by now.
In this study different approaches are examined exemplary for the settlement Buchegg I + II of the “Baugenossenschaft Waidberg” at the Bucheggplatz. Rezonings since it’s construction in the 1930s had made it possible to add a considerable amount of residential capacity through a redevelopment. In contrast to the case study done for the GBMZ, where anything but a complete redevelopment was ruled out multiple approaches are examined here.
In the case of Buchegg I + II it becomes clear that the decision to keep and renew part of the buildings and replace another was influenced by a multitude of factors. Firstly, the buildings selected for a renewal were part of a later construction stage and were therefore in a slightly better state. The geometry of the plot also meant, that this part would have been much more difficult to include architecturally into a redevelopment scheme of the plot. The buildings chosen for replacement included all of the ones constructed in the first stage of construction and a few of the later, second stage in order to reach the necessary limit for the “area bonus” that allows for a higher overall FAR.
