Design of an addition to a model home

Bachelor Design at the Department of Housing and Design, Institute of Architecture and Design, TU Vienna, 2012

100 years after the foundation of the Austrian Werkbund and 80 years after the opening of the Wiener Werkbundsiedlung it is time to question the concepts of the exhibited model houses from today's point of view and to re-position the search for future-oriented settlement houses, housing ideals and prototypes.

Josef Frank had designed the exhibition of 70 furnished show houses on the outskirts of Vienna. They were built according to plans by 30 international architects. But which of all the social and aesthetic utopias are still or once again relevant today? Which innovative living concepts can we put up for discussion 100 years later?

Physical working models created by the students

Photo: © Michael Wallraff

For this purpose, we have made the utopian assumption that the existing Werkbundsiedlung should be densified and adapted to today's needs: For each of the analyzed prototype residential buildings, an addition was designed that would sustainably improve the overall system and increase the density of the residential neighborhood. This was to respond to the specific aesthetic and social concept of the original house. The goal of the semester was to develop a deep understanding of the "mechanisms" of housing then and now, a manageable, contextually integrated design with the appropriate methods of thought and representation for it, and to discuss current utopias for dense housing development on the urban fringe.

Presentation of the finalized student projects

Photo: © Michael Wallraff