As the winner of an EU-wide competition, BWM Architekten were responsible for the architectural design of the House of Austrian History on the Heldenplatz. The concept evolved from the interplay between the imposing imperial spaces on the one hand and the contemporary history presented in the museum on the other. The historical architecture is first underlined by the design of the grand staircase, then it is utilised as a narrative background in the first exhibition room, and finally completely faded out in the modern history laboratory – a neutral space, entirely in white, intended to promote the development of new, contemporary perspectives. The exhibition “Aufbruch ins Ungewisse – Österreich seit 1918” (Into the Unknown – Austria Since 1918) presents 100 years of history on an area of 750m2.
Location: Neue Burg, Heldenplatz, 1010 Vienna, Austria
Photography: Hertha Hurnaus, Rene del Missier
Client: Austrian National Library
BWM Team / Architecture, Exhibition Design and Partial General Planning: Johann Moser, Anke Stern, Magdalena Geppl, Sanja Utech, Irina Koerdt, Emanuel Gollob
The Viennese district Wieden with its historic character and proximity to the city centre is the perfect place to live for the Austrian-Italian family. The only downside is the lack of personal outdoor space, a scarce commodity in this densely populated Wilhelminian city. Therefore, a new balcony is to complement the family’s living space with a small herb and vegetable garden as well as a dining table to enjoy mealtimes outside.
The building is a one‐family house in monolithic concrete construction. The 8×8 meter sized building stands free on a slightly inclined meadow interspersed with cherry trees and is accessed from a small road via a filigree steel bridge. The areas of cooking, living, sleeping are spread over three floors and connected by an open staircase. The material is limited to exposed concrete, raw steel and silver fir. The outer walls are made of 50cm thick isolating concrete. All surfaces are untreated. A floor construction was waived, the concrete surface was only polished. The heating takes place as concrete core activation with evacuated tube collectors. It is supplemented by a centrally located basic furnace.
The residential high-rise building in the most central Viennese urban development area at Nordbahnhof is already the second building block that AllesWirdGut is setting in this district. With clever arrangement and shaping, the building with around 340 residential units is larger than it looks. The result is a varied, slim form, which creates space and connects the high-rise with the city and the adjacent park.
The commission consists of the creation of the commercial premises belonging to a franchise that distributes and commercializes quality Spanish food products worldwide.
The project tries to update the concept of the traditional grocery store, adapting it to new and different situations. A black wood perimeter is proposed, operating as a wrap housing the facilities and large appliances, together with a central piece of furniture, made of pine wood, that colonizes the different spaces in which the franchise can be located.
With the contribution “Forum am Seebogen” the architectural studio heri&salli was able to win the concept competiton for the “Townhouse open to different usages” in Aspern-Seestadt. The building complex will emerge on the 800 m2 building site H7A in the quarter “Am Seebogen” in the new Vienna district “Seestadt”.
In collaboration with a company that builds family homes, art:phalanx-agency for culture and urbanity, landscape architecture Paisagista Liz Zimmermann, Werkraum Ingenieure und Marles , a heterogenic project, where living, working and imparting of culture form a fruitful symbiotic relationship, was developed.
With a special focus on the potential of modular system design, a contemporary prototype was created. The objective is to build in a short construction time and with relatively low cost a high quality living space.
The concept for the residential care home Donaustadt is based on an extensive program of the City of Vienna to react timely and functionally to current demographic conditions by establishing adequate public healthcare institutions. Not a medical institution in the conventional sense is provided in the northern side of the city, but housing for users who due to their age or illness are facing special spatial requirements. The guiding idea for the extension of the residential care home Donaustadt encloses a reorganisation of urbanistic conditions, which increases the use and quality of the surrounding public spaces.
“House with gable” is located on a slope site on the edge of a small settlement with a beautiful view on Pyhrn-Priel-Region, an alpine region in Upper Austria. The private builders wanted to create a house that harmoniously matches the surroundings and brings the outdoors inside. The young family requested a calm, clear architecture made of wood, concrete and glass.
This project is based on a complete new construction of the entire complex.
The alternative proposal to retain and adapt parts of the existing complex was rejected, as renovating the existing buildings, while a major undertaking, would still not provide the facilities required to run the school in a way that meets contemporary demands.
In addition during the course of the design work it was revealed that the dimensions of the complex imply an entirely different scale that would make a successful integration of parts of the existing complex practically impossible.
“Dealing with Infrastructures” was the title of the thematic area under which the organizers of Europan 7 placed the site located in Vienna; in fact it was probably a kind of paradigmatic case study: a triangular plot, placed in the outskirts of the city, surrounded by a heavy traffic way, an elevated underground line and crossed by a middle tension power line… anything else? Actually it was the typical “leftover” ground generated by the trace of the infrastructures surrounding it. The social housing developers that arrived before us had already built the area, but they left the “rest” waiting for a second opportunity. This “rest” was not just a real estate opportunity, but an opportunity to generate new urban life in a neighborhood placed in the periphery of the city without a clear representative image. The Perfektastrasse 58 site was full of opportunities waiting to be discovered… to recognize them was the beginning of the project. Due to the visibility given by the underground line, the plot was already part of the image of the city for a huge number of Viennese people in their way to the city center, so the project had to operate with it. Being close to Perfektastrasse U-bahn station pointed the plot as a proper place to increase the housing density, bringing more and more people and life into the area, following the theories proposed by the Transit Oriented Development. The plot had conditions to evolve into a new urban public space, a transit place in the way to the U6 station, but also a public space where celebrate collectively the everyday life. The absence of buildings on the other side of the elevated underground line allowed excellent views from the site to the landscape of Vienna when placed 8 meter high from the ground level. By last, the green condition of the plot while waiting for a “second opportunity”, gave an image to the context, but mainly a biodiversity, that could and should be preserved.
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