Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien Competition, Vienna, Austria | 2012

The proposal for the revitalization of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, a dynamic arrangement of a cantilevered bar branching out of the Schwanzer building, a library, an auditorium and a bi-level courtyard, is driven by the formation of a new ground that links the school with its surroundings. The project confronts the vital challenge of incorporating new and old architectures and also develops new spatial opportunities for three essential elements that define the culture of the institution: Discourse, Production and Display. The new architecture takes the three major buildings – the MAK; the Ferstel, the historic origin of the school; and the Schwanzer, 1960s utilitarian modernist loft-building – and produces coherence, changing a residual space between the buildings into the central focus of the institution’s activities and ambitions. Part of a pedagogical intent to disestablish a routine experience of the city and the homogenous modernism of the Schwanzer, the addition extends above the courtyard and forges new connections not only between buildings, but also to the city.