Productive City: Living, working and leisure inbetween Westbahn and Gründerzeit

This semester, the VU Wohnbau as a think tank with 400 students is dealing with the topic of the Productive City, the goal of which is to increasingly integrate low-emission and small-scale non-residential structures into the existing city, in the sense of a densely used city of short distances.

Together with the Studio Städtebau and the Integrative Entwerfen "Produktive StadtBausteine" (Productive CityBuilding Blocks), which are running in parallel for the first time, we are creating a dense discourse room with joint lectures and synergies.

Locally, we are turning our gaze to the west line of the railway, which cuts through the Wiental and ends at the Westbahnhof. Here, between Felberstraße and the railway line, there is a 1km long strip that can be transformed close to the centre in the near future. Currently underused, this area offers the opportunity to develop a socially and climate-sensitive urban space that innovatively combines open spaces, affordable housing, infrastructure, production, creative and cultural spaces.

On the one hand, the initiative from the urban community for an elongated urban open and experimental space should be taken up, which is closely connected to the sparsely greened and dense Gründerzeit structure of the 15th district. 

 On the other hand, the potential of the existing high-quality infrastructure of Felberstraße and the Westbahnhof is to be utilised by locating mixed-use urban components. In line with the current ARCH+ issue "Vienna - The End of Housing (as a Typology)", the mono-functionality of residential buildings is to be overcome and the integration of production, care, creative and cultural spaces is to be forced.

 Along Felberstrasse, a new urban edge is thus created that takes over the rhythm of the block structure of the Gründerzeit and enters into a dialogue with the lower-lying infrastructure landscape of the Westtrasse. 

What potential does this jump in level hold for the integration of flexible commercial structures in mixed-use urban blocks and for the development of a lower-lying urban "open and experimental space"?