5 Squares of New Learning

PORTRAIT D'ÉQUIPE

VIDEO (par l'équipe)

INTERVIEW
^{Cliquer sur les images pour agrandir}
1. How did you form the team for the competition?
We applied as KOSMOS architects, we are an architecture office based in Austria, Switzerland, and Russia. Our offices wass founded more than 5 years ago and we have always been interested in Europan urban competition. Austrian site of Klagenfurt is familiar to us and we found it a perfect case to propose a new vision of a European city, as well as solve its issues with our expertise.

2. How do you define the main issue of your project, and how did you answer on this session main topic, Living cities?
Architecture is not just a well-designed volume of a building, facade and internal layout. We believe that architecture is a spatial frame for spaces of public interaction, for being together. We believe that architecture should activate the space around and within it and provide extra quality to this space. That is exacltly how we approached the Klagenfurt site of Europan 16. Instead of focusing on only architecture, we have proposed an enfilade of sequential public spaces/plazas which activate the whole site, let people interact and be together, and therefore, create a truly “Living City”. These open spaces should be a frame or a background for people to spend their free time or work; play or study; relax or be active; meet each other or be with themselves. The projects of our office are quite diverse, but the topic of activating the public spaces and creating “spaces of being together” is common in most of them.