Gallery ︎︎︎
Wagi Areal
Navigating intersections of innovation and tradition in urban redevelopment“Transforming the Wagi Areal into a hub of Life Sciences amidst historical constraints and cautious Swiss sensibilities exemplifies the challenge of reconciling ambitious urban visions with incremental planning and traditional mindsets.”
Dietmar Leyk, principal and cofounder
The Wagi Areal, an urban expanse of approximately 55,000 square metres, presents a unique and challenging canvas. Once the site of the Swiss Wagon and Elevator Factory AG, it now belongs to a single private proprietor who has embraced the daunting task of repurposing and redesigning this significant space with remarkable ambition and vision.
Navigating the complexity of this transformation was no simple feat. The site’s historical infrastructure, including railroad tracks and a meticulously controlled material delivery and parking plan, added layers of difficulty to the project. Yet, these very constraints became integral to reimagining the site’s potential.
Today, the Wagi Areal has evolved into a vibrant experimental milieu for Life Sciences. It accommodates a diverse range of activities and employs over 1,400 people, attracting highly qualified researchers from across the globe.
Our engagement with the Wagi project was particularly compelling due to our extensive research into the development patterns of the Swiss Midlands and urbanised areas such as Schlieren in the canton of Zürich. This research has informed our ongoing proposals and strategies for urban development.
The results of our collaborative efforts are evident: a focused approach to halting the further spread of urban sprawl in Switzerland, concentrating building mass, and thereby creating more green spaces. We have prioritised the development of compact neighbourhoods and inward densification.
Working closely with the site’s owners and a diverse team of experts - spanning landscape architecture, life sciences, and structural and climate engineering—we developed solutions that align with a visionary framework within the incremental planning process.
While this approach might be considered sound, it faces considerable challenges in communication due to the inherently cautious Swiss mindset. Conveying such ambitious and progressive ideas within this context has proven to be an exceptionally difficult task.
Visualisation: Play-Time Barcelona