Main Ecourbanism “Vienna’s Lemons” – New Image of the City

“Vienna’s Lemons” – New Image of the City

In June 2016 in Austrian capital Vienna has opened a new residential complex “Vienna’s lemons”, although originally the project was called “Fallow land”, that is the land unused for a long time. In 2003, this project developed by PLAYstudio and YES studio, became one of the winners of the European competition of urban projects Europan 7, which involves professionals in the field of architecture and urban design in the age of 40 years. The peculiarity of this competition that it oriented not only to creative ideas, but to real construction.

“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.

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