Website and Intranet Portal for Housing Cooperative

Zurich’s housing cooperatives play a vital role in ensuring the city’s social cohesion by providing affordable flats. Acutely aware of their socioeconomic significance, Hanna Züllig and Martin Blum suggested sharpening the profile of the Baugenossenschaft Sonnengarten (BGS) co-op as being more than just a place to live. They convinced BGS to focus more on people, and not just on properties like other housing associations do. The group’s new website now conveys a sense of community with real neighbours.

Playgrounds. Intergenerational living. Getting involved. Video interviews transmit the core values and priorities of BGS tenants across ages, genders and nationalities. These direct and personal messages are underscored with information about the building cooperative’s various locations.

Upon the website’s successful completion, BGS commissioned internauta to develop an intranet portal that fosters communication and participation within the co-op. Züllig and her team pulled together a diverse set of priorities, from both the BGS and its residents, to make a coherent and easy-to-use online platform.

A lively marketplace. Postings on the notice board. Photo galleries. These are just some of the functions that have quickly turned the intranet into a vital channel for information and feedback in the BGS community.