AZW Care & Repair
How can we repair the future? How can design, architecture and urbanism take care of the city? The Social Design Studio and Rotor took part in the public workspace, workshop and exhibition “Care + Repair” - a field of experimentation for considerate approaches to a new urbanism, initiated by AzW in the context of the Vienna Biennale 2017 - at Vienna’s Nordbahnhof.
As one of six international, interdisciplinary tandem teams, the Belgian architecture collective Rotor and the Social Design department conducted a project on re-use and circular economy. In the course of a two-week public involvement workshop with residents and an interdisciplinary group of volunteers, the team worked on highlighting and displaying available material and immaterial resources of the area itself (in-situ) and beyond (ex-situ) on multiple layers.
As a base for negotiation and dialogue with the neighbourhood and to demonstrate the abstract dimensions of the future developments, the original planning line delimiting the “Freie Mitte” - a supposedly free urban wilderness as center of the new developments - was drawn across the site as a white line at 1:1 scale. Guided and unguided walks (along the line) with interested stakeholders and experts served as a platform for exchange and for the collection of personal and historical stories connected to the area. Simultaneously, the team researched, mapped, documented and visited used-material shops across Austria that could provide relevant materials for the future urban development at Nordbahnhof and samples of appropriate materials were collected. The research and interventions resulted in a public on-site exhibition of the found in-situ and ex-situ resources, presenting the valuable material and immaterial resources as well as proposals on how to integrate circular economic thinking in future constructions at the Nordbahnhof area.
As one of the interim-results, a new housing complex is currently being considered for construction with re-used materials. The research on material and immaterial resources in the Nordbahnhof project led to a scope of reusable materials connected to the area. The 1:1 white line, transferred from the plan into the physical environment, created a discursive space and a bodily experience for involved stakeholders, impalpable decisions of urban planning became visible and tangible.
© Aki Lee 2017
© Aki Lee 2017
© Aki Lee 2017
- Time
- July 2017
- Location
- Nordbahnhof Vienna
- Team
- Renaud Haerlingen
- Manon Portera
- Brigitte Felderer
- Maria Tsaneva
- Nathalia Portella
- Klaus Kodydek
- Martin Röck
- Stephan Trimmel
- Susanne Kober
- Fabia Wolfsteiner
- Daniela Moosbauer
- Aki Lee
- Mostafa Savari
- Ahmadullah Dost
- Rosa Schwarz
- Martin Färber
- Violet Kim
- Enrico Tomassini
- Matthias Testa
- Eric Klaering
- Somar Dibeh
- Que Chi Trinh
- Arash Rahimi
- Alarabi Rabhi
- Asia Valencic
- Links
- www.azw.at/en/event/care-repair/