TRANSFORMATION OF SITE

Being a „leftover“ of the construction activities for the new underground tunnel of the railway the site marks an important spot for the surrounding area which is dominated by historical suburban housing types with a high amount of green spaces. The site‘s strategic location between two public transport lines, the regional trainline and the tramway has to be considered when it comes to the spatial and programmatic organization of its future de- velopment. Although, on the one hand, the underground tunnel and the rail tracks have a negative impact, the site takes advantage of being at the crossroads of two public transport lines and a main road connection. The city aims at a development which should be an architectural and programmatic „landmark“, including a bandwidth of social services, small scaled commercial uses, intermodal facilities (bike and ride) and high quality of public and green spaces. It has to be explored if housing is pos sible under the circumstances of enhanced noise and vibrations. It will be decisive how the site can combine the issues of connection, den- sification and quality of open spaces.

CITY STRATEGY

The city of Vienna has set ambitious goals for the inner-urban development in order to provide sustainable consumption of land and infrastructure. Growth in „grown-up“ and developed areas is therefore a central interest for modernizing the city. Included in these efforts is the modernization of the public transport system which has been creating large projects of ur- ban transformation, such as the areas around the two main stations. On a smaller scale there are also projects of considerable importance, dealing with the integration of large scale infrastructures in the structure of the city. The Europan site gives a good example for the challenge of integrati- on at hand in these projects.

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