Zurich is a center of global finance. Its financialized real estate influences not only the
rise of rent and property prices but also methods of extracting value from housing and
residents. And yet Switzerland's largest city has a century-old commitment to public benefit
and nonprofit housing implemented through a cooperative model of sharing resources. Even more
strikingly cooperatives have been at the forefront of architectural and urban design
innovation for a broad mix of uses and household formations. Eight specific conditions have
enabled a long-standing commitment to nonspeculation within Zurich's for-profit real estate
market. Through its original reading of contemporary and historic projects Cooperative
Conditions makes tangible the interplay between architectural regulatory and financial
instruments in housing. In doing so aspects of Zurich's cooperative model become transferrable
to other places.
