Why? The demolition of buildings en masse to make room for new buildings is an important and, unfortunately, underestimated factor in climate change. Especially in developed countries with existing, high quality building stock, the decarbonization of the built environment needs to start by questioning demolition projects and avoiding unnecessary new construction.
How? Using innovative storytelling to point out the problem of mass demolitions and to highlight the positive climate impact of energy-efficient renovation and other societal benefits of preserving existing buildings as an alternative approach to city planning.
The focus of the project is on crowd-based investigation, in which citizens report on buildings threatened with demolition and share stories about these buildings through the so-called CrowdNewsroom. The different stories are collected in real time and shown online on an interactive map, which can be found under Abriss-Atlas.ch. The result is a continuously growing directory that illuminates the variety of relationships citizens have with existing buildings while highlighting their impact on urban society. The Abriss-Atlas.ch has grown to almost 1,500 registered cases so far.
Another objective of the project: to create awareness and launch a public debate about alternatives to mass demolition by publishing individual stories in the media while also relying on support by partners from industry and civil society. This has successfully led to several stories and reports in Swiss media and events covering this topic. In January this year, Swiss online magazine Republik and CORRECTIV started a series of seven articles highlighting issues raised by participants of abriss-atlas.ch, including the loss of grey energy, alternative concepts to demolition and economic drivers behind mass demolitions. Both parties also organized a public event on demolitions in Zurich, with an audience of more than 150 attending
Impact? Besides an increased awareness to the topic, the pre-campaign already influenced a political decision in Basel, Switzerland, where the administration planned demolition of downtown houses to build new car parks. The crowd based campaign mapped underground private parking garages, assessed daily usage patterns and estimated that around 2000 private parking spots were permanently vacant. The government considered these results plausible, and after a public debate, the government declared to prioritize existing parking spots. This shows how planning processes and construction plans may be reconsidered as a result of public awareness and crowd sourced data. Also the main campaign surrounding demolition data reached a milestone, with the Swiss Federal Statistical Office to officially report demolition data in the Buildings and Dwellings Register.
Where? Switzerland is the perfect case study. As a small country with a lot of construction activity, it is ideally suited for this pilot project. The innovative approach of crowd-based storytelling with the CrowdNewsroom has already been tested in Switzerland on other issues with encouraging results. The ultimate goal of the project is to promote urban communities by maintaining cities as places of social identification and to drastically reduce the climate impact of the building sector through a transition based on best practice within the industry. The international presentation of the project and its findings should allow similar research to be carried out in other countries. Put together, the positive impact on the climate through the preservation of more building stock and its climate-friendly renovation is an important factor, alongside clean construction, in making construction more climate friendly.
Switzerland is the perfect case study. As a small country with a lot of construction activity, it is ideally suited for this pilot project. The innovative approach of crowd-based storytelling with the CrowdNewsroom has already been tested in Switzerland on other issues with encouraging results. The ultimate goal of the project is to promote urban communities by maintaining cities as places of social identification and to drastically reduce the climate impact of the building sector through a transition based on best practice within the industry. The international presentation of the project and its findings should allow similar research to be carried out in other countries. Put together, the positive impact on the climate through the preservation of more building stock and its climate-friendly renovation is an important factor, alongside clean construction, in making construction more climate friendly. So far the project has already been upscaled to Germany together with NGOs, with already more than 1,500 entries in the German demolition map, called Abriss-Atlas.de.
Who? TPF’s partner in the project is the CORRECTIV CrowdNewsroom, a non-profit newsroom based in Bern that facilitates journalistic investigations on social grievances, allowing many individuals to participate. Its core is a digital platform where information can be shared in a secure and confidential way. CORRECTIV CrowdNewsroom aims to mobilize a network of partners for this project that includes architects and the construction industry.
When? The first phase of the campaign has been carried out in 2022 and early 2023, supported by a grant of CHF 45,000 from the Toni Piëch Foundation. In early 2023, the project entered its second phase, the main campaign phase, which was supported by a grant of CHF 70,000 from the Toni Piëch Foundation. From 2024 until early 2025, Toni Piëch Foundation supported the final phase of the project by a grant of CHF 60,000. In addition, TPF co-financed a Correctiv journalist in Germany with 20,000 CHF to support the storytelling around the German demolition map.
The project has been successfully implemented.