Zurich is a great city: high quality of life, excellent educational opportunities at world-renowned universities. No wonder the housing situation is precarious, especially for foreign exchange students. Only 0.05% of apartments in Zurich are currently empty. However, the Student Housing Foundation (SSWZ) has now come to the rescue: it commissioned a 169-room student hostel in Zurich-Altstetten, which was inaugurated Monday, 31^st August.

In their speeches, both ETH Zurich Rector Heidi Wunderli-Allenspach and city councillor Ruth Genner stressed the importance of the project for the university city of Zurich because it is conducive to the exchange of students from abroad and thus the ideas and expertise gained in Zurich. And Sebastian Brändli of the Zurich Ministry of Education said that the Bologna reform boosted student exchanges, which is why it is important that places like the student hostel exist where students can live and learn together.

Drop in the ocean

In his speech, however, VSETH President Daniel Stuber pointed out that, whilst the construction of the hostel was something to celebrate, it was merely a drop in the ocean. Despite the new building, the housing shortage problem has by no means been solved, he said. For Swiss students, the problem is usually solvable; not for foreigners, however, who have to acquaint themselves with the local customs first. “Rooms have to be available here if we want to have good exchange students in Zurich”, says Stuber.

The student hostel’s 169 rooms are already booked out despite their small size of twelve square meters. The tenants include 41 masters and 42 foreign exchange students from ETH Zurich, three tutors and 83 students from the University of Zurich.

Leading a spartan life for a year

A room costs 500 CHF a month and comes with all the basic furnishings: a desk, a chair, a bed with bedclothes, a washing facility and a high-speed Internet connection. Apart from the rooms there are also showers, toilets, a laundry room, a kitchen and a common room on the ground floor. The rooms and common rooms are color-coordinated according to Le Corbusier’s polychromy.

The hostel is U-shaped and blends in well with the urban surroundings of Altstetten. Its inner courtyard is a blend of housing and nature, and is to become a peaceful oasis for the students. The general contractor donated three oak trees for the opening, which one day will provide shade. Thanks to an air-to-water heat pump and a sophisticated ventilation system, the building meets the 2008 “Minergie” standard.

Speedy construction

The construction work took about a year. At the end of May last year, ETH-Zurich Rector Heidi Wunderli-Allenspach, turned the first sod sitting on a digger (cf. ETH Life). That she was able to inaugurate the hostel on schedule is also owed to the fact that countless institutions, experts, good spirits and many others pressed ahead with the project and brought it to a conclusion, she said at the inauguration.

The building costs, including the land purchase, amounted to around 17.7 million swiss francs. ETH Zurich, the City and Canton of Zurich, Woko and Beat Halter all contributed to this.