Visits in Wien

E10 – Wien (AT)

Wildgarten
a new porous district negotiated with the actors

Designers: Arenas Basabe Palacios arquitectos (ES): Enrique Arenas, Luis Basabe, Luis Palacios
Landscape design: Land in sicht (AT)

Clients: City of Wien – MA 21 Office, ARE (Austrian Real Estate GMBH)

COMPETITION: The ‘Garten>Hof’ project outlined the development of 10 hectares of residential fabric in a suburban area in the city of Wien. A grid of gardens structures the area, allowing a division of land, whilst also acting as urban objects. It is possible to build around the gardens but not inside them. Building lands are concentrated on the North of each garden, providing a greater opening towards South. These extrovert plots are colonized by different parties: the public body, private developers, cooperatives, individuals… A building is initially assigned on every garden plot. The neighbourhood gradually densifies heterogeneously, constantly adopting the needs of the population.

PRE-OPERATIONAL: After the competition, a draft for the urban planning of the area is produced. It is a collective pattern for individual interpretations, a matrix of gardens that organizes the area, and can be built around, but not within.

Once the support was secured, the project developed to investigate the connections that it could produce, redefining the configuration of free space. A collective space that is reprogrammable over time, and with the capacity of appropriation, was put into place. The result is a porous fabric, in terms not only of low-carbon footprint, but also of flexibility in the construction and continuing process: a liquid that adapts to the changing needs of society. The story is guided by the real characters that have taken part in it, including the team’s local partners, management mobility, landscaping, energy and sociology, as well as the representatives of the neighbourhood, the soil promoters and the office of the Wien City Council, all of them participating in the design process.