Total Housing - ELEMENTAL


	PPAG ARCHITECTS WOHNHOF ORASTEIG Actar: How did the process of collaboration with the residents work? PPAG: The competition is a so called Bauträgerwettbewerb: architect + client start as a team. The winning team (the best project) gets the site and the public funds to realise the project. In our case the team architect - client was set up by r&k (raum & kommunikation KORAB KEG. www.raum-komm.at), a consultant who manage a communication & design processes between the clients, architects and residents. The clients EGW Heimstätte and Heimat Österreich are companies developing housing projects with public funds for the city of Vienna and "sell” (rent) the apartments by themselves. So the framework for the tenner’s participation was constituted in the tenancy agreement. A team of r&k around Robert Korab and Annika Schönfeld explored the interests of the residents and managed the use of common space. Thus during the whole design process from the competition stage, the architectural design and the community design stimulated each other. The idea of the building grew with the idea of a community and viceversa. r&k represented the future residents as an idea of a vivid community in the whole process. We designed a building for this idea of community, this specific design then attracted a certain group of people and so this intended community more or less got reality. Can you explain more about r&k? r&k work over years now, gathering knowledge about community work and community organizing. They have experience with community structures, how to set them up, how to manage them... They also know the market & trends and work on various studies concerning housing (“generation living” for example), sustainability, financial models, urban development etc. So this is the input they give to the architect and the client. r&k offer knowledge, competence, so to say and certain services, for the ORASTEIG project for example they have been in charge for building supervision (in cooperation with us) as well. How those common space are managed now? After tenancy r&k helps the tenants to use the facilities of the building, to set up a self administrated community (who is responsible for the key of the sauna...), to communicate to each other. So now the residents themselves decide on the use of the common areas. This is not only for administrational reasons, for time schedules and so on, but above all for community design reasons. Who is interested in dancing, who is interested in fishkeeping, who is interested in gardening? So there are a couple of groups with specific interests, who live not beside but with eachother. That’s the idea. Could you provide some more detailed information on the cost-efficiency decisions -- materials, construction methods or processes, etc.? In the end a simple hybrid construction system turned out the most efficient: Brick and concrete. The building is a low energy building. 26 kWh/m2a (heating) is near to passive house standards. Materials had been a big issue. In terms of sustainability and in terms of comfort. So we used a special plaster, which is able to control humidity of the air, we installed a specific ventilation system, etc. Construction site was organised dust-reduced.... Back to Main Page

PPAG ARCHITECTS
WOHNHOF ORASTEIG

Actar: How did the process of collaboration with the residents work?
PPAG: The competition is a so called Bauträgerwettbewerb: architect + client start as a team. The winning team (the best project) gets the site and the public funds to realise the project. In our case the team architect - client was set up by r&k (raum & kommunikation KORAB KEG. www.raum-komm.at), a consultant who manage a communication & design processes between the clients, architects and residents. The clients EGW Heimstätte and Heimat Österreich are companies developing housing projects with public funds for the city of Vienna and "sell” (rent) the apartments by themselves.
So the framework for the tenner’s participation was constituted in the tenancy agreement.
A team of r&k around Robert Korab and Annika Schönfeld explored the interests of the residents and managed the use of common space. Thus during the whole design process from the competition stage, the architectural design and the community design stimulated each other. The idea of the building grew with the idea of a community and viceversa.
r&k represented the future residents as an idea of a vivid community in the whole process.
We designed a building for this idea of community, this specific design then attracted a certain group of people and so this intended community more or less got reality.

Can you explain more about r&k?
r&k work over years now, gathering knowledge about community work and community organizing. They have experience with community structures, how to set them up,
how to manage them... They also know the market & trends and work on various studies concerning housing (“generation living” for example), sustainability, financial models, urban development etc. So this is the input they give to the architect and the client. r&k offer knowledge, competence, so to say and certain services, for the ORASTEIG project for example they have been in charge for building supervision (in cooperation with us) as well.

How those common space are managed now?
After tenancy r&k helps the tenants to use the facilities of the building, to set up a self administrated community (who is responsible for the key of the sauna...), to communicate to each other. So now the residents themselves decide on the use of the common areas.
This is not only for administrational reasons, for time schedules and so on, but above all for community design reasons. Who is interested in dancing, who is interested in fishkeeping, who is interested in gardening? So there are a couple of groups with specific interests,
who live not beside but with eachother. That’s the idea.

Could you provide some more detailed information on the cost-efficiency decisions -- materials, construction methods or processes, etc.?
In the end a simple hybrid construction system turned out the most efficient: Brick and concrete. The building is a low energy building. 26 kWh/m2a (heating) is near to passive house standards. Materials had been a big issue. In terms of sustainability and in terms
of comfort. So we used a special plaster, which is able to control humidity of the air, we installed a specific ventilation system, etc. Construction site was organised dust-reduced....

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