COOP Giardino - E

LOCATION/HISTORY

The Coop Giardino garden centre is located in the industrial and commercial zone of Volketswil, a conurbation community in the Glatt Valley, east of the City of Zurich.

The Volkiland Shopping Centre is located diagonally opposite. Designed by renowned architect Jakob Schilling and opened in 1984, this centre takes on the role of a village centre. The street behind the Coop Giardino borders on a residential district. The site was previously part of an extensive car park with trees. Access for motorized individual traffic is excellent and the centre is well integrated into the dense, pedestrian-friendly local road network. It has good connections to the regional
public transport network.

DESIGN/ARCHITECTURE

This new, single-storey building, which is slightly over eight metres high, is designed as an annex to the adjacent Coop Bau+Hobby DIY outlet. The garden theme is reflected in the form of a pavilion-like, translucent glass structure, reminiscent of a conservatory or an orangery.

In outline, the building pays tribute to the Volkiland complex. The airy, two-storey structure consists of additive elements, with a series of uniform saddle roofs extending from north to south, which give it a striking and distinctive silhouette. The Coop Giardino has taken on this design motif; the shape, dimension and orientation of its five gable-shaped fronts are reminiscent of the example opposite; this kinship is also manifested in two gentle recesses in the south façade, which subdivide the broad main volume with its filigree steel / glass structure.

Inside, the building, like an orangery, offers a heated hothouse and a cooled greenhouse. Widely-spaced supports guarantee maximum transparency and flexibility. The glass roofs feature automatic ridge opening to prevent heat build-up. Sun protection is provided by automatic internal shade curtaining. The entrance is located at the west façade, opposite the DIY outlet, and leads into the hothouse area. Directly accessible display areas at the south and east façade make the connection to the adjacent open space.

A low, flat-roofed annex at the north-east corner serves as a warehouse and includes cloakrooms, sanitary and technical rooms as well as the heating system. This solid structural element is overlaid with plaster-finished outer heat insulation; the warehouse has a delivery bay with lifting platform.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Although the Coop Giardino was a comparatively small building project, the implementation team faced some unusual challenges. It is located in an archaeological zone, where a prehistoric lakeside settlement area is suspected. For this reason, archaeological explorations had to be conducted beforehand. Under the lowered lifting platform, the construction team encountered a major body of groundwater. This made excavation more difficult and required emergency slope protection. The incoming groundwater had to be pumped out around the clock seven days a week during construction work. Nevertheless, the handover was still on time: in February 2016, the principal moved into the building to carry out fitting-out work. Coop Giardino opened on schedule on 17 March 2016.