Urban software

Author(s)
Arenas Basabe Palacios Arquitectos
Enrique Arenas Laorga (ES)
Luis Basabe Palacios (ES)
Luis Palacios Labrador (ES)

Local Partners
Soyka -Silber-Soyka Architekten

Actor(s)
City of Vienna – MA 21 Office
Siemens AG Österreich
Sozialbau AG
ARE (Austrian Real Estate)

Competition team
Enrique Arenas Laorga (ES)
Luis Basabe Palacios (ES)
Luis Palacios Labrador (ES)
architects

Europan 12 Wien - Siemensäcker

runner-up

2017-2021
Once the masterplan approved by the Viennese city hall, the land owner commissioned the runner-up team with the design of 65 housing units in 3 blocks of different scales (size S,M,L).
The architecture design is determined by 5 qualities:
Bike city: the 3 housing blocks are connected within a platform in the basement floor, which as well resolves the plot’s complex topography and provides direct access to the homes by means of pedestrian lanes arriving at the community gardens with bicycle parking.
Commons: the collective character of the design is also reflected in the architecture design. Community spaces like the big bicycle parking, the large kitchen opened for the quarter’s community, a sun terrace and a children’s playground are connecting the 3 blocks with those spaces connecting the community.
Exterior unit: The design incorporates a new trend of Viennese contemporary housing: each of the 65 housing units includes a space referring to the exterior. Like this, balconies, bow windows, terraces and gardens are alternating among the flats improving housing quality and opening the homes to a green pedestrian-friendly surrounding.
Servant furniture: The housing takes place round single service furniture, which includes service zones, storage and sanitary installations. Like this, the living areas are orientated to the exterior and the day zone (living, dining, cooking) is disposed at the building’s edge receiving day light for many hours during the day.
Local materiality: wooden shutters are reflecting the materiality and the constructive system which are used in the buildings’ structure (bearing concrete walls with exterior thermal isolation, selection of local woods). Furthermore the selection of indigenous plants and trees for the green spaces is a necessary condition to conserve the ecological and sustainable quality of the construction process of the new quarter Siemensäcker.
The construction work has been completed end of 2021.

Site informations

Wien - Siemensäcker

Synthetic site file EN

This project is connected to the following themes

Shared spaces - A Frame for social life

An urban software proposing to go beyond the usual distinction between public and private spaces. The project is based on common space, managed thanks to the software. This way, the spaces do not have predestined uses.

Habitat - Time

A new urbanity based on a process-project approach is able to answer to three different contexts through a matrix-based strategy. The management of the processes of urban production is possible thanks to the urban SOFTWARE, the urban SYNTAX and the urban SUPPORTS.