REPAIR & CARE. A Strategic Response to Renewal in Gösting.
Graz (AT) - Lauréat
TEAM PORTRAIT
VIDEO (by the team)
INTERVIEW
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1. How do you define the main issue of your project in relation with the theme “Living Cities Imagining architecture taking care of the milieus”? And in which way do you think your project can contribute to an ecological and/or social evolution?
The XL site presented many interconnected historical, cultural, and environmental issues. Our design approach embraced a bottom-up urban analysis to inform our renewal strategy. Social and ecological evolutions are fostered through mitigating climate risks. The transformation of existing waterways into self-regulating biodiversity and active transport corridors creates social and cultural shifts in the ways people engage with and move throughout the city.
2. How did the issues of your design and the questions raised by the site mutation meet?
Our proposal creates a vibrant public realm and enhanced active transport routes to negate Gösting's peri-urban mindset and car dependence. Implementation of the transport hub is made possible whilst minimising impact on green spaces and existing buildings through reimagining Wienerstraße to serve both cars and trams. Our proposal aims to transform Gösting from a stagnant suburbia to a dynamic neighbourhood that embraces the natural environment.
PROJECT:
Much of our architectural studies focused on large, complex projects, this has been furthered by experience in private practice working across range of scales from residential to strategic masterplans. We are greatly inspired by We Made That's strategies and masterplans, Free Street Alliance's manifesto, and Projects for Public Spaces' What Makes a Great Place framework, which we reference often to analyse existing urban conditions.
SITE:
Confident in the feasibility of our proposal, we aspire to evolve it into an implementable masterplan for Gösting. Acknowledging the importance of stakeholder engagement, our project emphasises stakeholder input to align the masterplan with community aspirations. In Repair and Care this is considered through providing an implementation timeline that describes the sequence of actions required for achieving the proposed outcomes.
REFERENCES:
5. How did you form the team for the competition and if so what are the skills you associated?
Therese and Mitch collaborate on projects since 2015. Therese is passionate about design's impact on social equity, well-being, community and projects that foster grassroots engagement. Mitch's experience includes delivering architecture projects for community groups and local governments, recently expanding into urban design and strategic planning. Together, their passion centres on positively shaping the built environment for people and the natural world.
6. How could this prize help you in your professional career?
We certainly hope winning this prize provides us an opportunity to make an ongoing professional contribution to the renewal of Gösting in coming years. Regardless, the competition has provided us valuable exposure and recognition as young professionals and a great deal of confidence in our processes. Winning the competition will definitely encourage us to seek out new projects to work on together.
TEAM IDENTITY
Legal status: We don’t have a legal status as a team yet and currently working on a name. In the last years we both have collaborated with other individuals from different countries and backgrounds on various projects. Working collectively with people from different places will also be crucial for our work in the future. We are aiming to achieve local responses informed by intercontinental perspectives and learning.
Team name:
Average age of the associates: 32 years old
Has your team, together or separately, already conceived or implemented some projects and/or won any competition? if so, which ones?
Under Construction: House surrounded by gardens. A home for a woman with chronic illness.
An ongoing project with Collective Baer: Commedia de’ll Arte Urbana - a spatial installation to activate a sense of community and public space.
Participant/ Exhibitor of the exhibition Melbourne: Megacity? Sprawling Melbourne Characteristics of a Future Megacity.
Publications: The Fifth World: The new social order defined by Heterotopias. An Essay with Illustrations by Therese Eberl, Mitch Gow and Marta Kowalczyk
WORKS:
