Bulant & Wailzer

Study for Renovation of the Area of the Railway Station Vienna-West

WIEN WEST - SKY CITY
Study for Renovation of the Area of the
Railway Station Vienna-West, 2002

The key aim of the project is the vision about future development of urban structures.

In the area of west railway station was planed to be built in the future big volume of 130.000 m3. The planning Department of the Viennese municipality has decided to allow the building of 120m high skyscrapers, mostly intended for office use.

The question for us was which kind of organisation is useful for the urban business life of today and which kind of architectonical vocabulary is necessary to express this.

We cannot accept those archetypical skyscrapers that are unflexible and closed in themselves. As Zaha Hadid say "the epoch of the skyscraper is over--not primarily because of concerns for security--but because the skyscraper's organizational structure is too simple and too constricting. Towers only grow in one dimension. The strict linearity of its extension accounts for its characteristic poverty of connectivity. Towers are hermetic units, which are themselves arrays of equally hermetic units (floors). These features of linearity and strict segmentation are anti-thetical to contemporary business relations as well as to contemporary urban life in general. Much higher levels of complexity are required to spatially order and articulate contemporary relations."

The skyscrapers take away part of the open space and don't offer new public space.

In our project we offer a structure that is flexible, growing into itself, changing in time and that is sustainable. In spite of the height density this structure offer much new public space for use of all citizens.

The SKY CITY is a `CITY IN THE HOUSE` project, an urban mixture of different functions in a huge public atrium-space, the GREEN PLAZA.

A 20.000 m2 platform over the existing buildings, the "PLAZA", defines additional urban green space and a huge pedestrian zone with shops, restaurants and entertainment facilities.

The different terraces of the plaza are connected to the ground by a ramp on the north side offering entrance for taxis, fire brigade and ambulance cars. The space in between the 5 blocks can be used for pavilions of different size erected time by time.

The platform is erected over a 3,5m high grid of construction and installation, partly filled with earth for big trees. In the south there is a connection to the shopping street, Mariahilferstrasse, by a large stair

and a group of elevators and escalators, leading directly also to the garages in the ground.

In the big atrium there a all connecting links free in the space (elevators, stairs, bridges)

Like this different office spaces can be connected by skylinks, used also for conference rooms and terraces. All the structure is growing time by time, flexible office space is available in different sizes.

On top there about 50 penthouses planned. Offices and apartments are possible on the same place by the use of 14m wide block.

Sum of the new floor area in the planning phase A is about 135.000 m2, additionally there is the sky plaza and the terrace on top of the shopping centre with about 15.000 m2 area. Parking is for about 2.000 cars, as well as areas for service and goods.

In the planning phase B and C there are additionally 150.000 m2 areas for apartments, offices and supplies as well as spaces similar to housing (students home).