VIENNA – HEIDI & CARRIE

EUROPAN 10 international urban planning competition.
SHORTLISTED
Masterplan for the Liesing District in Vienna.
Program: 358 dwellings, combination of low rise and high rise types. Park, social and commercial activities, plan for a new train station.
Total planning area: 11 ha
Total floor area: 45.000 sqm.
Location: Vienna, Austria.
Design: 2009.

The realities that surround the project site become the base for our study. Its heterogeneous border conditions are astonishing and surreal: the agricultural allotments, their proximity to the centre and to Shönbrunn, a cemetery. We accept to compromise with the allotments and rather pursue their qualities to the extreme, in order to re-invent a unique lifestyle fitting the site. In this sense, we want to pursue the extreme agricultural condition by creating a striking contrast with its “shape and texture”.
Therefore we create a line of high rise elements, very slender and dynamic. The combination of two different densities becomes the key concept for the rediscovery of a new lifestyle and urban landscape. We base the whole master-plan on the collaboration of three main characters: the low rise area, the high rise and the central park. This last one becomes a mediator, an “urban event” which will transform Meidling-Liesing into a unique example for the coexistence of different lifestyles in the core of the capital city.