Architecture Walking Tour

Vienna Twin Tower

Architectural structure.

Schrägseilbrücke, Vienna

Vienna Gasometers

The Vienna Gasometers are four gasholder houses, built as part of the municipal gas works in Vienna, Austria. The original gasholder houses were constructed from 1896 to 1899. They are located in the 11th district, Simmering. They were used from 1899 to 1984 to house gas holders (also known as gasometers), each with a storage capacity of 90,000 cubic meters (3 million cu. ft.). After the transition from coal gas to natural gas between 1969 and 1978, the three gasholder houses were no longer used and were shut down. Only the brick exterior walls were preserved. The structures have found new residential and commercial use in modern times.

Rooftop Remodeling Falkestrasse

The rooftop remodeling Falkestrasse located in Vienna, Austria, is a Coop Himmelb(l)au architectural project. Architizer, About Coop Himmelblau, March 2012 The remodelling is an edition to a pre-existing traditional Viennese building. The law firm clients, Schuppich, Sporn, Winischhofer required more space in which Coop Himmelblau went up and out. The remodelling design commenced in 1983, with the final construction concluding in late 1988.

Wohnen im SÜSS

Urban Planning Differentiated layering of heights The masterplan is sensibly developed further regarding the layering of each individual building’s height. This play with different building heights provides plenty advantages: The quarter’s silhouette is being revived, more two-sided oriented apartments are possible, the shielded rooftop areas in between provide attractive and diverse lingering areas and last but not least the flow of winds throughout the quarter is improved. Minimal sealing The concentration of parking lots mostly underneath the building represents an essential part for the configuration of a climate-oriented quarter and the establishment of a blue-green infrastructure. Courtyards remain above natural soil, without a garage underneath. Thus, a network of courtyards in combination with a path leading to an intensive green lingering area with shade providing trees, natural percolation and a reservation for animals and plants. Diversity Numerous typological solutions and provide eclectic spaces throughout the buildings across the quarter. Reoccurring elements, as well as a balanced canon of colors and materials, merge the quarter into an ensemble – despite diversity in details. Architecture Access / Entrance Inviting and recognizable building entrances create identity. Natural light throughout vertical staircases, as well as a combination of central corridors and open corridors lead to divers and eclectic apartment typologies. Living for every circumstance Whether smart or standard, respectively private housing, oriented across the corner of the building or though the building, east or west bound - the variety of apartments is versatile and provides apartments for unique living wished and circumstances as well. Open for any use, ateliers for work and living, a cluster of apartments with a common “living room” / common room, smart-apartments for single parents, as well as additionally connectable rooms add to a versatile and flexible mix of typologies. Compact volumes Economic building means simple and geometric planning. Thus, a compact and little dissected building envelope is aimed at. Added “green shelves”, open corridors, balconies and a construction for façade greening are spread throughout the facade structure and create depth and complexity. Social sustainability Next to the implementation of a commercial range (coffee shop, organic-shop, supermarket, commercial spaces), this concept includes a wide range for the community as well: A generous common room for all 227 apartments near the courtyard overlooks the children’s playground, an open use “neighborhood-salon”, a small bike repair station as well as various smaller common rooms across the upper levels. Ultimately, common terrasses on the roof tops and a swimming pool conclude the social offering. Landscape The urban planning concept allows the development of an intensive green, central motion- and lingering-axis, extending in a north-south direction and additionally provides the opportunity for the positioning of attractive expansions of space, embodied through pocket gardens and entrees. Hereby connected green spaces with a high ecologic claim can be created. Outdoor greening flows as continuous open space through the ground floor, creating a dialog between indoors and outdoors and merges into bordering green spaces. The accessibility for all residents of the quarter was emphasized with this concept.

QUBE22

Favoriten is Vienna's 10th district and an increasingly popular place to live. As part of a three story attic extension at Quellenstraße 22, the entire existing building was completely renovated and insulated. To the west of the project there is a generous green space that offers an unobstructed view. The corner building, however, only had one side facing the green space, which is why the attic extension was turned towards the park and the course of the sun. This made it possible to allow every apartment to enjoy the green view and to bring more daylight into the interior spaces. In its form, the structure picks up the neighbouring buildings and establishes a continuous line in terms of urban planning. The cubature is clad with an air-permeable grid and the apartments offer two-sided orientation, allowing cross-ventilation similar to a historical wind tower, which is very pleasant in summer. The design elements found on the facade and a lot of cooling greenery run throughout the building. Not only the attic windows were equipped with modern sun screens, but also all windows on the existing floors received a discreetly hidden external protection against the intense southwest sun. As a small detail for the residents, the desolate fire wall of a neighboring house was renovated and designed. By immensely increasing the usable floor space, it became possible to redensify within the city and deliver urgently needed living space. This project also stands out in terms of sustainability, as the core renovation and connection to the district heating network means that the building runs on ultra-low energy requirements. An additional cooling effect was achieved by greening the flat roofs. This architectural contribution to Viennese residential culture sets new standards both visually and ecologically.

THE ROCK - Radisson RED Vienna

“THE ROCK” is a new hospitality building designed for Radisson´s recently launched lifestyle hospitality brand, Radisson RED. The hotel, which is the first of its kind in the German-speaking region, can be found at both a physical and social junction in Vienna’s 2nd district. The semi-public building houses 179 rooms, an event space, a publicly accessible rooftop bar and terrace, a courtyard, restaurant, and gym. The site is situated in a well-visited area among a row of notable highlights along the Danube Channel. The design approach placed a strong focus on public expression and communication, resulting in an individual shape and identity. Architecturally, a complimentary tension exists between the facade’s regular raster of large windows and tectonic folding likened to that of a rock formation based on diverse influencing parameters. The folds follow site restrictions, permit light to reach neighboring structures and the street, and visually initiate the building’s lively interaction with the public. This exchange is fostered by an almost physical connection to the Schottenring metro station, directly in front of the hotel. From the street, one can see through the lobby to the courtyard thanks to the ground floor’s transparency, emphasizing the building’s public nature and social intent. This concept extends upwards from the courtyard into the rooftop garden and terrace. The hotel´s urban, lively surrounding is mirrored by the 24-meter-high mural in the courtyard, acting like a visual anchor. The interior´s surfaces, materials, and the hospitality group's curated furniture selection merge Radisson’s design guidelines with Viennese culture. The glass house rooftop is a platform for further public expression, forming a dialogue with the adjacent street, the river, and the city. An additional “greenhouse” typology stands out as a clear attraction amongst the regularity and consistency of neighborhood’s residential buildings, all having similar heights and traits. Cantilevering slightly over a row of windows below, it clearly indicates an exceptional space intending to interact with the rest of the city. The architecture´s notion is also transferred into the design of the top floor, where a lightweight, floating textile ceiling, unfolding tent-like into the bar space, blurs the boundaries between indoors and outdoors. The white, rhombus-shaped aluminum cladding, precisely folding around the edges, merges exterior walls and the roof into one homogenous volume, emphasizing the unified, rock-like nature. Gold-bronze, slightly mirrored windows extend outside of the facade, providing sun protection. On the inside, they become pieces of furniture on their own, having the height of a bench and becoming “living windows,” communicating with nearby people and buildings and encouraging observation. In this way, even the windows have a subtle way of connecting with exterior public space.

Tower of Power

The Tower of Power, located in the Vienna Brigittenau district, is a public charging station for electric vehicles. Operated by the Wien Energie electrical company, it was conceived to be a teaching and research facility as well. Because of that the Tower of Power was mostly put together by trainees of an apprenticeship-learning-center in cooperation with leading companies from the e-mobility industry. Using different charging systems such as contactless charging and commonly used charging plugs for cars, motorcycles and bikes, the station provides electricity for four cars and four e-bikes at the same time. The roof and the tower are two of the most ancient architectural forms that are joined together in this project to create a building type that gives the project a distinctive and powerful shape. The design also expresses the technical components of power generation: The tower houses a wind turbine, and the photovoltaic system is visible in the shape of the sawtooth roof. The roof protects from the elements, provides light, and accommodates 130 square meters of photovoltaic panels. The charging stations, the essential functional elements of the station, are located beneath it. The building itself is a steel frame structure clad with aluminum panels. The Tower of Power is connected directly to Vienna’s power grid: whenever surplus energy is produced, it is fed into the grid. Conversely, the power grid provides energy to the charging station as needed. However, the total amount of energy provided to cars and bicycles is not greater than the amount produced by the Tower of Power itself.

Upper Belvedere Visitor Centre

The Upper Belvedere Visitor Centre is a discreet yet transformative extension to the historic Belvedere Palace in Vienna. Conceived as an underground structure, the project meets the dual demands of heritage preservation and contemporary functionality, offering an enhanced arrival experience for one of Europe’s most iconic baroque landmarks. The brief called for a design that would not detract from the palace's baroque splendour yet still asserts a confident architectural identity. The resulting scheme introduces a subterranean complex that interweaves landscape, light, and geometry to orchestrate a new visitor narrative while maintaining visual deference to the historic fabric above. Programmatically, the centre serves as the principal point of arrival and orientation for the museum, housing ticketing, information points, cloakroom facilities, and a shop. A single, continuous underground volume is articulated through a sequence of interlocking domes, both spherical and ellipsoidal, recalling the theatrical geometries of baroque architecture. These domes perform a spatial choreography, defining various zones within the centre while also accommodating dramatic oculi that channel natural light into the depths of the structure, and establishing visual connections between the new interior and the sculptures and gardens above, transforming the experience of transition into one of quiet spectacle. The plan also carefully integrates logistical infrastructure for deliveries and art handling, connecting the new centre to the palace, and the adjacent art bunker in a seamless operational loop. Architecturally, the project draws on baroque principles of drama, reflection, and processional movement, yet it reinterprets these through a resolutely modern language. The material palette is subdued and tactile, supporting the interplay of natural light and shadow across curving, textured surfaces. One of the most poetic features is the entry pavilion, a transparent glass structure supported solely by its curved envelope, appearing to float above the landscape and signalling a moment of contemporary clarity within the historic grounds. This lightness is continued below ground, where gently curving walls and vaulted ceilings offer immersive spatial sequences that honor the ornate richness of the palace above. Sustainable design principles underpin the scheme throughout. By burying the new construction, the design takes advantage of the earth’s thermal mass, moderating indoor climate with minimal energy input. The domes are prefabricated for speed and precision, minimizing disturbance to the sensitive historic site. The landscape strategy preserves and enhances the palace’s axial garden composition, inserting skylights as if they were playful baroque garden ornaments - simultaneously functional and poetic. This interplay of old and new, of permanence and ephemerality, defines the Upper Belvedere Visitor Centre as an architectural palimpsest, one that elevates the museum’s cultural offering while preserving the dignity of its past.

ARIANA Event Hall

In the midst of one of the largest urban development projects in Europe - the Lake-City Aspern (Aspern Seestadt) in the northeast of Vienna - the need of a large catchment area for a modern event hall has been satisfied. The ARIANA Event Hall takes advantage of the excellent infrastructure of the smart-city Seestadt aspern and positions itself as a place of assembly equipped with unique architecture as well as the latest technical features. Taking the currently prevailing pandemic into consideration, an extremely powerful ventilation system was installed. Within the framework of a competition in 2019, our project was able to prevail and convince by proposing simple cubatures, but a spectacular facade. The concise facade element protectively covers the building structure like a leaf of life and its angled supporting fabric is reminiscent of the veins of a leaf. The “leaf of life” becomes a shell and covers a generous threshold area between interior and exterior space, which is created by the recessed facade. This results in an interlocking and intermingling of the residents of Seestadt aspern and the visitors of the Event Hall. Underneath the VIP area, the only element set one floor higher, visitors are able to exit their means of transport in a protected area. The event hall itself can be divided into two areas and separated by an acoustic wall. The lobby and outdoor areas can easily be connected, allowing events from 30 to over 2000 people as well as an unobstructed view through the entire building.

Danube city bridge

Vienna University of Economics and Business

University focusing on business and economics in Vienna, Austria.

SAP Vienna

The strategic design of SAP’s Vienna office is a creative push towards a healthier working environment, both physically and psychologically, as density and structure are eased by reflection on the organic and the use of natural objects. Since plants aren’t often incorporated into tech firm office architecture, the design looks to establish a “Central Park” in order to defy this notion. The park is a democratic offering, making itself available to everyone at all times and providing a variety of amenities. Lounges, kitchen areas, coffee bars, meeting and thinking rooms are just a few of the functional offerings in the park. Just steps away from every work station, it offers an open alternative to the density and ordered grid of individual desk stations along the exterior walls of the office. The space also encourages employees to periodically detach from their singular workstations in favor of more collaboration, as seclusion can be common amongst tech employees. A communal room dedicated to the office’s Viennese context and a cafeteria open to visitors from other companies also favor conversation over separation. Focus rooms spaced periodically throughout the open workplace zones allow manageable group sizes the chance to converse. Overall, there is a distinct focus on a healthier working environment through biophilic interventions, as well as the encouragement of collaboration with a multitude of communal spaces. The merger of technology and plants through design for the sake of workplace well-being is both socially sustainable and beautiful. Architectural elements, lighting, and sound were all considered through a uniquely biophilic lens. Glass walls transform colors when passed by, while casting colorful shadows throughout the day. Varying carpet tile pile heights provide unexpected tactile sensations on the ground. Wood, water, and a multitude of plant species promote a relaxing atmosphere. There is a dynamism here likened to park life. A scarcity of large, hard elements means noises tend to dissipate into the office space instead of reflecting. Ceilings and floors are also sound absorbing, combining with the floorplan layout to make for a quieter working setting. Winding pathways leading to light-filled openings and the strategic use of outdoor furniture complete the feeling of being outdoors. The undeniable reference to New York’s Upper East and West Sides – an organized structure bordering on open space – is a playful continuation of the Central Park inspiration. The outcome of these combined design tactics is a healthier workplace setting. Long screen exposure and monotonous desk time implied the need to bring something natural into the picture to promote physical and mental health. Nature and technology, density and openness, focus and serenity – the new SAP office in Vienna is a human-centered work environment.