Margareten Tower

Sport and games

As part of a competition for a pedestrian and cycle bridge over the Margaretengürtel in Vienna, an undefined ‘social facility’ for young people was called for as an extended programme. The idea was to create a space that would bring together activities and people who rarely come into contact with each other in everyday life.

A sports and play tower is proposed for the site, which is surrounded by traffic and is a polluted location with contaminated soil. It functions as a stacked communication platform of an alternative character and ties in with the typology of a vertical open space developed for Salzburg-Lehen. Similar to the piece of a chess set, the tower is placed in a strategically effective position in the city. Views and good visibility connect it with the neighbouring residential areas beyond the barrier of the adjacent traffic lanes. The stacking of roofed and weather-protected open spaces, which can be used for different leisure activities on the various floors, offers informal recreational opportunities for young people in public spaces.

An irregular support system was developed for the tower's steel structure in an iterative optimisation process. The irregular bar structure is also part of a spatially differentiated vertical development, a walkway that folds upwards with various stairs and ramps starting from the pedestrian bridge. A translucent, ‘semi-permeable’ membrane, whose shape was developed from a simulated shrinking process and which adapts to wind and weather with different permeabilities, serves as weather protection and climbing aid for plants.