At first sight, the town of Uster seems like a big village. As the third-largest municipality in the canton of Zurich, Uster is given the status of a city although it is a description that is not expressed in its own city body. In the center of the city a barely defined street square near the railway station offers the chance to develop a piece of the town.
While the edges of the city blocks remain fixed by the existing historical construction, the new development structure in the internal area concentrates volumes of different mass and heights into one orthogonally independent geometry. Two skyscrapers have an important meaning for the entire city of Uster by forming the image of its new city center. The five houses form a continuous sequence of public squares. With it, the tradition of the open courtyards in Uster can be reinforced and accentuated.
The external structure of the roughly cut stone block facade creates not only a powerful presence but also a small balcony layer between public place and private space. The second layer of the facade reveals the uses of the different programs including apartments, offices and commercial rooms. Roof, facades and square become overgrown with indigenous plants that develop as an extensive greening of the roof, as a growth on the fire belts in the facade and as a green cushion in the spaces between the flooring of the square.