SITE DEFINITION
The site is located at one of the main entrance points, representing a spot of welcome to locals, commuters, vistors and tourists alike. In the surroundings a series of programs - some established, some more recent - testify the site‘s potential as a signifcant development area which is perfectly connected and placed at the interface of inner and outer city: the city’s main soccer stadium, the ice-sports-hall, the new fair-building on the fair grounds, the city-events’-hall, a shopping mall which is linked to the public transport.
Signifcant is the N-S organization of various band-like developments which are arranged in parallel and characterize the spatial-structure of the area railtracks, strip for goods and freights, Conrad v. Hoetzendorf Street (main entrance-axis to the centre), strip of suburban developments, Muenzgrabenstrasse (second entrance road). The band-like structure embeds the Europan site in a larger structural spatial system which reflects the historical growth of the city southwards. The „loose“ and fragmented arrangement of buildings within this characteristic structure offers a lot of potential for transformation: Europan triggers a perfect opportunity for a change in pro- gramme, architecture and urban performance in order to exploit the site‘s excellent location.
NEW URBAN MOBILITY
The site is a contemporary market place for traffic exchange: a destination for changing mobility, from regional to local networks. Especially the spatial potentials of the traffic-change with its interstitial activities and transient urban qualities provides an excellent framework for the re-definition of public life, intrinsically linked to distinct rhythms and speeds of the various users: how can we „host“ the rhythm of markets, of commuters, of leisure, of stadium-events, of senior-walkers as an elastic system of coexistence, etc.
NEW SOCIAL LIFE
The culmination of the project‘s potential is its capacity to manage coexis- tence: being more than just a mixed use hub the project shall be able to provide a stage set for differnet speeds, different rhythms of the everyday. different uses and claims - a plaӿÝorm for contemporary public life in all its diversities.
NEW ECOLOGY
To live in a progressive wooden tower symbolizes a comittment for sustainability in itself - new ecology starts with the concept of how to implement the whole project - be it on the level of architectural excellence, be it on the level of urbanistic intelligence: in corresponcence to the architecure‘s concern with sustainable construction the urban plan focusses on the sustainable organization of urban intensification.
