Cooplog housing cooperative

Situation

The 6,245 m2 site in Carouge, on the site of the former Institut Batelle, is now home to three buildings with a total of 84 housing units developed by the Cooplog cooperative society.

Its aim is to build under the best possible economic conditions, enabling tenants on modest incomes to become cooperators, thereby gaining control over the destiny of their home.

The project, harmonized with the requirements of the HBM standard, is set in a quality environment, benefiting from a localized neighborhood plan, not far from the center of Carouge.

Program

Off-the-beaten-track solutions. In addition to keeping construction costs low (420.-/m3), a number of other major criteria governed the development of the project. Among them, a preference for space over equipment: rooms are sized at a minimum of 16 or 17 m2 for bedrooms, 15 m2 for kitchens and a minimum of 30 m2 for living rooms.

The main construction material is wood, in the form of prefabricated elements. Only the base of the building and the stairwells/lifts are constructed in reinforced concrete.

The latter act as rigid static elements and, thanks to their centered position, minimize non-habitable surfaces. The wooden elements are vertical and horizontal glulam frames, assembled using metal rods resin-sealed into the posts and struts.

These joints, which are comparable to welded joints in terms of their behavior, connect timbers whose quality is predetermined by ultrasonic testing. This technique guarantees standard quality and allows cross-sections to be reduced by 30 to 40% compared with conventional standards.

The application of the new possibilities offered by these technologies has made it possible to construct the buildings on five levels, a “first” for multi-family housing.

The question of fire protection, already solved passively by the overall and detailed design, is also being considered in an active form, with the installation of an automatic sprinkler system, as requested by the authorities following the fire at the Gilamont buildings in Vevey.

The building’s technology is conventional, with the exception of the gas-fired heating system, which, like the ventilation systems, is installed on the roof, and is accompanied by solar collectors used to produce domestic hot water.

The apartments are spacious and bright, with naturally lit bathrooms on the front of the building an undeniable added bonus. Added to this is the unheated, fully glazed loggia, a balcony in summer and an effective thermal buffer in winter.