Vienna, Austria

Heidi & Carrie

Europan 10-Wien

NAUTA architecture & research - Maurizio Scarciglia

Masterplan

-Introduction

masterplan of the whole area. Combination of low rise and high rise

Master planning in contemporary cities implies the control of many factors that make the whole process very articulated and multidisciplinary. The current political and economical condition that is affecting Europe and the whole word makes even more compulsory the need of a strategy behind any planning process, since a good phasing and management constitute the base for the development of big urban areas throughout time. Meidling-Liesing represents an incredible opportunity for an “ urban vision”. The realities that surround the island become the base for our study; the eterogeneous border condition makes us dream of a new “jewel” in in the Wiennese metropolitan archipelago. It is astonishing and surreal the discovery of the allotments neighborhood: its extension, proximity to the centre and to Shönbrunn. Such an extensive living area is socially extraordinary, with very low density and luxurious use of the ground, its lifestyle. Here the inhabinats can still relate to nature and benefit of privacy, in the bucolic Austrian tradition. This condition makes this site unique within the context of Wien, a city structure that can witness important historical chapters of urban planning and architecture.

Masterplan. Low rise detail. Definition of public, semi private and private spaces

For this reason, the “essence” of the site becomes our ultimate fascination. We don’t need to compromise with the allotments, but to pursue their qualities to the extreme, in order to re-invent a unique lifestyle fitting the site and that ultimately could make it the trendiest and most authentic place to live in the city.

Heidi. Low rise ploor plans. Proportional site occupation and gradual density. Different types for different inhabitants

In this sense, we want to pursue the extreme condition of the allotments by creating a striking contrast with its “shape and texture”. Therefore we create a line of high rise elements, very slender and dinamic. They follow the urban pattern of the new allotments and become on the metropolitan scale the real “flags” of the intervention. The combination of two different densities becomes the key concept for the rediscovery of a new lifestyle and urban landscape. Like in the renaissance and baroque, when the buildings where created out of their relationship with the landscape, basing their composition on views and urban relations, we base the whole masterplan on the collaboration of three main characters: the low rise area, which we called Heidi, the high rise, which we called Carrie, and the central park. This last one becomes a mediator, an “urban event” which will transform Meidling-Liesing into a unique example for the coexhstence of different lifestyles in the core of the capital city.

Heidi_low rise

The combination of different densities and the introduction of a green hart in the composition, become our tools to control the main qualities and objectives of the masterplan: urban and landscape quality, lifestyle and social qualities, marketability, logistics and phasing.

Heidi_low rise public space

1- Urban plan and landscape: social and lifestyle qualities

Carrie - High rise types. Vertical green enriches even subsidized housing

Heidi and Carrie want to offer two different urban conditions for different inhabitants that, by choosing either low or high rise, will anyway find in the whole masterplan their sense of identity and belonging. Heidi is a fabric of low rise dwellings, organized on a pattern of platforms that work as autonomous micro blocks. The quality of the single block lies in its open conformation. The platforms, elevated 60 centimetres from the street level, become podia, bases for the free standing dwellings. We want to propose a new interpretation of the allotment in a communal way, fitting the reality of a metropolitan condition. The podium is the base for more single family houses. It is a semi-private space: its use and mantainance belongs to the inhabitants owning a house insisting on the each podium. Therefore each podium works as a horizontal condominum. The single houses own a private piece of space on the podium. The rest becomes a flexible field of interaction between heighbours; a space where anybody can meet and enjoy his love for nature. Kids can find on those podia safe spaces to play with their neighbour friends. Families can organize barbeques together, watch a match on tv in the warm seasons, sitting all together out in the communal garden. Anything can happen on a podium. Anything happening here will be the reflection of who lives on the platform. A social mirror and field of freedom, in order to experiment a new concept of private-collective life. Nevertheless, the podium does not preclude the preservation of privacy and property. Each house owns a space that can become a cultivated garden for vegetables, a wooden deck, a space for inflatable pools for kids. Each podium integrates covered parking lots for the inhabitants. Furthermore, each dwelling owns an outer storage room located on the same podium. We propose four low rise types, with a clear ratio between footprint and heigh of the dwellings.

Carrie - central park integrates low and high rise. Living in the landscape and living in the city make Lesing a metropolitan sustainable district.

The structure of the low rise masterplan guarantees the total integration of the existing buildings that need to be preserved. They become important anchor points in the low rise masterplan, creating, together with three new stategic squares, the main urban events in this “urban-agricultural” fabric. Three squares are articulated following a shifted line, starting from south and crossing the site toward north. They become social breaks in the pattern of single family houses. They simultaneously reconnect the public space to the pattern of green fingers that, starting from the central park, distributes a clear network of open green paths between low rise and high rise.

Vertical green for each dwelling gives additional quality to all housing units. Even subsidized housing benefits of a private garden.

The high rise development grows on top of a rich landscaping platforms system. Those platforms host on their west fingers additional urban functions that will add quality to the whole masterplan for both high rise and low rise. Here inhabitants can find new functions, different and complementary to those in the low rise development. Coherently to the more urban environment of this location, the platforms host a supermarket, a sushi bar, a spa-fitness centre, a nightclub, a cafè, and an art gallery with exhibition space. The atmosphere reminds glamourous neighbourhoods in the city centre of Wien and other world capitals, where the feeling of living in the city contributes to strengten the identity of the place and its image and uniqueness on the urban scale. The backside of the platforms hosts a vast parking complex on two levels accessible directly from the new back street which, following the topography of the site, provides parking lots to all the upper dwellings. The platforms face the park side with a landscaping system of terraces and water ponds which enhance the naturalistic principle of the masterplan. Last but not least in fact, the central park plays a majour role in the definition of the masterplan. The park becomes a filter between the two density realities, the real protagoinist on the local condition, still playing a very important role in the urban scale.

panel 1

Looking at the city plan we identify a very fragmented green line connecting Liesing to the north, till Shöunbrunn. Toward the south a very fragile green line crosses the allotments and the railway side.

panel 2

The central park in the project area becomes a corridor and real urban catalist on the broader scale. The green path coming from north, crossing the cemetery, will compulsory drive pedestrian flows to the park, in order to redistribute them to the south areas or to the east development, crossing the railway through the green bridges of the new fast train station.

panel 3

The role of this new infrastructural hub, together with the renovation of the trading strip, become the key elements of the masterplan for the very long term. Having a connection node for metropolitan flows allows us to immagine a greater role of the site in the big scale of the city. The high rise development follows the west-east direction, keeping a constant visual connection between the site and the other side of the railway, signing but not blocking the skyline toward east. For this reason, in the very long term, we can imagine an exploitation of the masterplan by extending the line of high rise buildings over the railway. Weather they would host more dwellings or become an office or administrative hub, it depends of course on the future role that Liesing will play on the metropolitan scale. The strategic directions drawn by “Heidi and Carrie” will consolidate the structure and the role of this area, however the site will evolve in the future. In this sense, beside the visualization of a new urban reality, we do belive that “Heidi and Carrie” is a real flexible strategy. To make this point clear, our urban proposal includes a total number of 347 new dwellings (over a maximum of 400 units proposed by the brief). The structure of the high rise buildings does not preclude the rediscussion and negociation of the number of floors plans, lenght of the slabls, and therefore the general density of the area. The real important issue in the masteplan is the definition of a solid phisical, logistic and environmental strategy that would guarantee in any case urban and spatial quality to the inhabitants of the new Liesing.

- 2 Green and public space

The overall green strategy is based on the urban analysis of the site. “Central park” plays a metropolitan role, becoming a “green bridge” between Meidling-Liesing and the nearby areas. The structure if the park is articulated in order to define a main growth direction from north-west to south-east. On two sides, central park touches either the low rise or the high rise developments. The park relates to the two housing realities in a different way: Entering the low rise fabric, the park creates large green fingers, memories of the allotments. They extend the existing agricultural structure becoming public boulevards that continue the visual connection from the allotments till the other side of the railway. In order to strengthen this landscape perception, the high rise buildings are all oriented in order to preserve the skyline open from west. They visually become sort of monolithic sculptures, signing the skyline toward east and preserving the progressive landscaping feature that characterizes homogeneously the whole masterplan. On the east side, the park touches the high rise development and melts with it, creatinga a vertical landscape. The roof of the platforms continues the park vertically, till its “disintegration” into the vertical patios in the slabs. The sustainability we want to achieve is not only based on technology and material applications. We believe that ecology and natural sustainability should be translated into a real “green perception” of the living environment. Green, light, water, open spaces are elements that, with no doubt, either in the countryside or in the middle of the city, are appreciated and desired by all inhabitants. Everybody aims to own a small piece of “private” nature, and the real challenge of our project is to provide it to each inhabitant of Meidling-Liesing. Beside the housing type, the location, the social class and the cost of the dwellings, they all offer a more or less big green space to the owners. Even subsidized houses will benefit of a terrace or a deep loggia that will add great quality to the lifestyle in the area.

The low rise development becomes a platform for a reflection on the good qualities of the allotments. What can we optimize and improve in the extensive pattern of the area? In light of this considerations, we imagine the definition of the “horizontal condominiums”, some sort of podia, belonging to a small group of housing units. The platform becomes an instrument for a clear definition of a progression from total public space to total private space. The space on top of the podia is “furnished-landscaped” with private and communal portions. From the organizational point of view, the maintenance of the platforms is a duty of all owners of the condominium. Owning a space on the platform gives freedom to the inhabitants to customize their open space, animating the landscape in multiple ways: cultivated gardens, hard surfaces, playgrounds, a private swimming pool can transform the landscape into an amazing playground to test private-public life.

- 3 Marketability and logistics

Here we come to one of the main issues within the assignment. How to combine an innovative urban and environmental vision with the reality of the market? How to create a strategy and capable to “mould” itself to the request and the need of the market? How can we work for a realistic goal and accomplish our visionary intentions with the real need of the inhabitants and the developers that will afford the construction of such a huge urban transformation? In this sense, “Heidy & Carrie” bases the essence of its vision on an issue which can immediately be translated into market: density. The formulation of a concept founded on density variations allows us to communicate to the market and to adapt our proposal to its needs. On a detailed scale, each macro actor of the masterplan offers additional internal flexibility that can become a tool for negociation: the lowrise in fact offers four housing types with different densities. Those types are flexible to satisfy the request of different social classes, making the developer strategy solid and economically sustainable. The high rise buildings become a real vertical city, detaching the image of the slab building from its historical rigid connotation. The long buildings, slender and ligh, vibrate with the variation and different types combinations, showing their internal quality and, offering five more types for five different inhabitants. From subsidized housing to luxurious villas, the masterplan will combine social targets providing a heven quality to the inhabitants of this new area of Wien.

-4 Architecture

The above mentioned market flexibility finds a direct translation into construction. The architectural concept for all buildings follows very simple principles.

Low rise:

Type A presents a footprint of 144 sqm. It is a villa for a single family, with four bedrooms and an internal patio. We decided to propose the villa type, even if the trend of the market is currently reducing the average dimension of the dwellings, in order to meet the bucolic atmosphere of the neighborhood and involve a social mix that could invite even higher classes to buy a house in here. The B type, with a footprint of 120 sqm and one single floor height, is a double family house with two apartments of 64 sqm each. It is the most basic dwelling, fitting the request of a single or starters. It owns an open space outside, on the podium. The type C is a single family house on two levels (total 120 sqm gross). It includes on the first level, a patio-loggia, offering an additional private open space within the dwelling. Last comes type D: With a footprint of 36 sqm and three levels, it becomes a 100 sqm dwelling for a single family. Its compact density implies the movement of the private terrace on top of the house, turning the roof into a real “roof-garden”. Four types for different needs and choices, they contribute to differentiate the urban landscape in the “Heidi” area and offer multiple point of view toward the landscape for each inhabitant. Variety and variations generate a rule.

All dwellings present in their visual appearance the density concept as an architectural value to be exploited. The facade of the dwellings is composed by folded bands that surround omogeneously the perimetre of the houses. They vary in vertical density on base of the number of levels of each dwelling. The higher the dwelling is, the more the alternation open-closed bands will show its verticality.

The alternation of closed and open facade, together with the position of living area and sleeping area within the dwellings, pursues the environmental quality of each building, making the living rooms some sort of panoramical points from which it is possible to look outside, till the park.

Therefore, the architecture collaborates with the urban and environmental strategies, in order to maximize the natulalistic and visual qualities of the masterplan. From each dwelling it will always be possible to perceive nature. A tool to interpret, in a non techologycal way, the issue of sustainability.

Another architectural quality of the low rise development is constituded by the free flexible floor plans, which can allow changes and adaptations in the functional distribution of the dwellings, and the materialization of the same.

The continuous bands running around the buildings would work as thermal facades, composed to host a natural layer of hearth and vegetation. This thick skin works as energy collector during the day. At night it redistributes to the interior spaces the heat accumulated, becoming therefore an additional tool for environmental sustainability and costs saving. The low-tech scheme allows to build the dwellings with a very homogeneous column structure, adaptable to all types. On top of that, the outer facade offers additional flexibility for the materialization of each dwelling. On base of the taste of the buyer, the masterplan offers flexibility for the materialization of the solid bands of the facade.

Vernacular Austrian architecture can be translated into wooden or stone skins, traditional chalets and colorfull flowery balconies are echoed by the use of traditional local materials. On demand, contemporary architecture lovers, minimalists, brutalists, can materiualize their dwelling by using a multiple palette of materials, spacing from metals to ricled materials till brutal concrete facades. The main concept will persist anyway, preserving the urban qualities of the masterplan in spite of any material or economical variation.

- High rise

On the other side of the site, hig rise dwellings will guarantee a total perception of the landscape and an optimal orientation toward the sun. Each building in fact rethinks the typology of the corridor building. Conventionally, this type presents a north and a south orientation of the rooms of each dwelling: On the distribution corridor, exposed to north, bedrooms and kitchen look over the public corridor, while the living room looks toward south, collecting all possible insulation. In our type we “unfold” the traditional corridor dwelling, redistributing all its internal spaces to the south. The connection corridor within the dwelling becomes an offset of the common outer corridor, making sure that all inner functions of the housing unit will look toward south.

Furthermore, we give each dwelling a deep loggia which becomes a real “vertical patio”, Even to the high rise inhabitants will have a small private garden.

The high rise buildings are articulated on base of five typologies, ranging from 68 gross sqm to 184 gross sqm. The types are loft, simpex and duplex. Three types are developed on one single floor. They start with a minimal studio unit, suitable for a single or a young couple (type A, 68 sqm), and grow modularly by adding bedrooms to the basic unit. We have therefore types D ( 96sqm) and E ( 116 sqm) which differ from each other for the addition of a bedroom. These two types grow modularly, both turning into duplex units by the addition of either one (type B 184 sqm) or two bedrooms (type C 160 sqm) on a second level. The five types guarantee the possibility to inhabit the slabs with different social targets, ranging from singles, students, till small or big families, including subsidized formulas. The back facades, all oriented to north, will ensure no shadow to the next building and an orientation capable to offer each single unit a view toward central park.

- 5 Data

low rise (from 1 to 3 floors): type A= villa 1 floor_160 sqm gross foot print_140 usable sqm (12 dwellings) type B= 2 dwellings_150 sqm gross foot print_60sqm+60 usable sqm (54 dwellings) type C= single dwelling 2 floors_80 sqm gross foot print_120 usable sqm (27 dwellings) type D= single dwelling 3 floors_50 sqm gross foot print_100 usable sqm (23 dwellings)

high rise (from 6 to 15 floors): type A LOFT – gross surface 68 sqm type B DUPLEX – gross surface 184 sqm type C DUPLEX – gross surface 160 sqm type D SIMPLEX – gross surface 96 sqm type E SIMPLEX gross surface 116 sqm

-Total low rise dwellings = 116 -Total high rise dwellings = 242 -Total dwellings in the masterplan = 358 -Total site surface 11.07 Ha -Overal number of houses per Ha = 35 (calculation includes in built area the surface of central park and green fingers connecting low rise to high rise development). - Max number of low rise floors = 3 - Max number high rise floors = 15 + 2 parking/multifunctional levels

-Average FAR low rise (gross floor area dwellings / area platform) = 0.5 - Average FAR high rise (gross floor area dwellings / total platforms area) = 2.6 - Approx number of inhabitants = 1100 - Population density = 100 inhab/Ha - Built fraction = 28.330 tot imprint/110.733 sqm site = 0.25

- 6 Intelligent phasing

The overall phasing strategy wills to provide for each of the realized phases a portion of the neighborhood already inhabitable and fully functional. In order to establish a clear and logical progress in planning, we start by solving the existing problems of the context. The overall masterplan strategy is based on approaching the site by “two sides”. The allortments constitute for us an incredible inspiration element and at the same time a real challange. They ultimately create an autonomous self sustainable island in the metropolitan pattern of Wien, which can offer amazing life style qualities but at the same time, big disfunctions and lacks.

phase 1 (estimated completion 2014).

For this reason, we start providing, since the first phase, the necessary network to improve the life of the residents. This way we try to combine as well a “social” approach, which could help the follow up of the more radical intervention phases. The first phase foresees the realization of a buffer zone, between the south allotments and the site. This strip will host a green area and a line of public parking lots, accessible from Emil Behring Weg. We offset the boundary of the allotments to the interior of the project site, creating a service street that will immediately supply access to the new parking lots. The first advantages are the decongestion of Emil Behring Weg from the existing linear parking and their substitution with the south parking lots line, easily reachable from west and south allotments.

From east, we start since the first phase to propose the construction of the new street that will separate the railway and the trading strip from the site. This street is necessary to avoid planning any other long axis that would cut the site either from the cemetery at north or from the allotments at south. Therefore we organize the whole infrastructural strategy defining the two growing directions that will make the site effective since the beginning from both directions. The “consolidation” process constitutes the base concept for our strategy. Each edge condition becomes the root and challenge for the masterplan.

The first phase forsees the construction of two bands of “condominium platforms”, with a total of 58 extensive dwellings. The low rise band includes the construction of a first public space and facility that wills to become an additional “negociation gift” to the existing allotments. We program then the realization of an amphitheatre with snack bar and projection room, that can become during the nice season, a nice open air cinema. Further east, the phase includes the realization of a first portion of parkik platform and a first high rise building with only 6 floors and 10 dwellings. In between high rise and low rise strip, a first portion of the central park makes already welcoming the first housing complex for the first inhabitants. One first commercial activity can occupy the low rise platform and the first building at west that is preserved, can be renovated and fully operational.

Phase 2 (estimated completion 2019).

The second phase extends the fabric of low rise dwellings, bringing the number of extensive dwellings to 92. The west side of the project site is complete. A new line of public parking lots completes the necessary parking for allotments inhabitants and new neighbouthood visitors. The low rise fabric includes the construction of new sport facilities, includeing basker, volley and football field. At the same time, the east high rise complex is extended with the addition of three new high rise slabs. 94 new dwellings are added in this part of the site, with consequent extension of parking platform. New commercial and social activities activate the low rise. The central park grows parallel to the complex, in order to be the mediator between low rise and high rise for each phase. The buildings that need to be preserved are fully completed, with the refurbishment of the central one. It is turned into a local municipality office, providing public facilities for the new population inserted into the area in the short and long term. The second phases with a total of 196 dwellings, fulfills the goal of completion of the first “housing phase”, as asked by the competition guidelines.

Phase 3 (estimated completion 2024).

This phase foresees the completion of the whole low rise masterplan, with the realization of the total 116 dwellings. The urban extensive structures is completed with the construction of the central square and the two functions here located: the new kindergarden (which provided compulsory new educational space for the total 274 new housing units) and the library-mediateque. 54 more housing units are built in new high rise slabs, with the progressive extention of parking platform and commercial-public functions; Sushi bar, fitness and spa, art gallery, make the new district a destination even for people living in other areas of the city. The very change of this phase is the completion of the central park. The collector of flows and interactions on the local and the urban scale is ready to make Meidling-Liesing a metropolitan neighborhood unique in its kind.

Phase 4 (estimated completion 2030).

The last phase implies a complex consideration over the changes and transformations that the previous phases will bring in the future of this area. The competition guidelines point out the importance and the responsibility of the urban project to clarify and envision a new role of Meidling-Liesing in the long term. Many aspects of the long prevision cannot now be defined because pending on political and economical issues that will inevitably evolve differently in the next years. We want to use the last planning phase of our masterplan as a tool to illustrate the potential flexibility that we propose, and the very strong ecological base , real foundation of our planning method. For us Meidling-Liesing might be exploited, in the long term, as an example of urban green lung, becoming an area with no further ambition than providing a top quality living environment, as well as becoming a pioneering district capable to benefit of the urban innovations that planning research and environmental technology will bring in the future. Therefore, the area might become an as well an advanced environmental multifunctional node of the city.

The forth phase includes the completion of all housing units for a maximum (flexible for negotiation) of 358 housing units. The low rise and high rise reach their full operational role, reinforced by the central park and the multiple functions hosted into the low rise. A supermarket completes the offer of primary functions that will make the area self sustainable and autonomous. On the other side of the railway, the complete renovation of the trading strip can leave space to a new working environment that becomes economically valuable for the addition of working spaces.

Consequently, new housing types and experiments can be tested, in order to combine working and living, as a mirror of urban society progress. The new fast train station will make Meidling-Liesing efficient, easy to reach and connected fast to the other metropolitan actors of Wien. People will arrive here not only to live, but to work, to buy and for entertainment.

People will keep living here and other people will choose to move here to enjoy a new lifestyle that will keep on truck with the urban progress without forgetting tradition and the real essence of Austria: history and nature.

We think that, the few and strong principles drawing the masterplan will allow this flexibility to follow the political evolution of the area. Density combination will contribute to avoid any possible “ghetto” degeneration. Infrastructural acupuncture will enhance the efficiency of the area, without over dimensioning the mobility. Homogeneous accessibility to public facilities and public spaces will guarantee life quality and long term permanence of the inhabitants. Differentiation of the housing types and targets will stabilize the market value of the area in the long term, making Meidling-Liesing a desired living area throughout time.

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Heidi & Carrie