zwischenland - Activation of an Urban Interstitial Space

The central location of Vienna in Europe and the evolution to a city with high quality of life entails that the total population is rising annually. In the inner and partially outer districts near the Gürtel area you mainly see old typologies of towns, where new livingspace is created by increasing its density. Green Area and fallow land are displaced. Generally leftover areas and parks with strictly allocated land use remain, leaving little scope for personal development.

 

In my diploma project I deal with the 16th district of Vienna which appearance is characterized by a variety of typologies and open spaces. From the Gründerzeit quarters (‚Hippviertel‘, ‚Brunnenviertel‘) via interwar buildings and post-war buildings, typical council housing in Vienna (‚Sandleitenhof‘), through to the holiday area Wienerwald with cottages, detached houses and allotment areas. This district illustrates the many facets of Vienna within its borders. This has resulted in a wide range of urban environment and a strong social-mixed neighborhood.

 

Looking at the Gründerzeit quarter of the district, it can be seen that there are few well designed open spaces in the area around the Gürtel between ‚Ottakringerstraße‘ and ‚Thaliastraße‘. These open spaces appear more like leftover spaces and do not take advantage of their potential as social spaces. This diploma project deals with the appreciation of these leftover areas, caused by a cut in the city grid and which are not big enough for a possible development, as well as the adjoining vacant ground floor surfaces.

 

The aim of the appreciation is to interlink the residents, to strengthen the connection with your district, to create a common identity and to establish new neighborhood relations. This ist to be enabled or enhanced by the development of an enhanced reference for direct near-residential space. These leftover spaces are to develop social interaction spaces, as they offer great potential for a neighborly used room.

 

In support by methods such as walk-through inspections of the district, observations and analyzes of the building structure, the existing open spaces, social structures, local and seasonal dynamics and processes of the district are analyzed. The results form the basis for the programmatic pulses and the emergence of a common everyday structure and design of the free surface. By setting these pulses, the activation and use of space, the district is assisted in its development of public open space.

 

A supportive, flexible structure that can accommodate ideas, that can support processes and diverse interests offers the possibility to develop - a missing link to invite people in different situations and different backgrounds to communicate and live together.

 

The goal is to create places and spaces that are often visited and used to enable a meeting and to facilitate exchange. It should not be a formally imposed measure, but leaving space for individualisation and preserve the independence of the residents. The newly created urban public space is to be revived, experienced and lived.