KP2 – 4 Houses on Kempelenplatz/ Vienna (AT) – with 227 residential units and 12 commercial units

Four Wins

It is with a collage of four individual houses that the design responds to the heterogeneity of differently sized building plots, setting a four-beat rhythm for a diverse and mixed urban quarter at Vienna's Kempelenpark, which combines resource-saving construction with microclimate measures and high-quality residential space.

The designated planning area in Vienna’s 10th district (Favoriten) is divided into two building plots: one of typical local size and one for a larger-than-average built volume. Situating four unique buildings facilitates making adequate functional use of the available site area as well as the transition from small-scale surrounding structures to independent new buildings. The color-graded structures in grey and green take up this maxim of diversity in the form of individualized windows and loggia details, rearticulating it through heterogeneous roof shapes and pergolas. The façade design provides the formal bracket for the residential quarter: durable corrugated fiber-cement panels give the four individual houses a common face. In order to make the most of the large building depths, all apartments have attractive storage spaces in the entrance areas and projected open-air spaces at crucial points.

The stairwells are all centered, offering, with generous air spaces, hospitable communication zones in the tradition of Gründerzeit hallways. On the ground and first upper floors, three-quarters of the buildings offer space for commercial facilities, offices, and community uses such as libraries and medical offices. The diversified urban plinth vitalizes the public space around Kempelenplatz and the cul-de-sac (a semi-enclosed urban zone) and, with floor-through urban foyers, connects the residential buildings with the more private park areas.

The houses are designed as frame buildings and, due to their structural consistency, could even be erected in low-emission prefab construction. The modular paneling of the insulated timber-frame walling makes the flexibly adaptable buildings particularly sustainable and lowmaintenance, even the green parts of the façades. The rooftops above the uppermost floors will be used for PV systems and underneath offer a lush habitat for plants and insects, with additional nesting boxes for birds and bats in the roof-parapet areas.

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Four quarters make a whole: Four new townhouses are coming to Kempelenplatz in Vienna’s Favoriten district, adding to the neighborhood’s vibrant togetherness of differences. May we ask you in?

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Architecture: AllesWirdGut
Project stages: tba
Client: STC Development GmbH

Competition: Nov. 2023 – 1st prize
GFA: 25,512 m²

Team: Ewelina Pawlik, Gerlinde Starlinger, Katharina Malinaričová, Philip Langer

Visualizations: AllesWirdGut
Illustrations: AllesWirdGut
Model: mattweiss