Zurich’s Toni Areal, a building complex repurposed with an artistic twist, displays a façade that is both a shield and a canvas. Its corrugated expanded metal, reminiscent of waves frozen mid-ripple, playfully interacts with light, casting an array of shadows that give the structure a living, breathing quality. Once a bustling dairy, it now nurtures creativity and learning, housing the Zurich University of the Arts, the Museum of Design, and parts of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Its very skin tells a story of transformation, of life reborn in industrial bones, designed with a keen sense of historical continuity by EM2N Architects.
