GRAZ

SCALES — L – Urban / Architectural LOCATION — Kärntner Straße POPULATION — 320,000 inhab. STRATEGIC SITE — 110 ha / PROJECT SITE — 43 ha SITE PROPOSED BY — City of Graz OWNER OF THE SITE — City of Graz, Department of Urban Development POST-COMPETITION PHASE — Urban masterplan and design guide for public space; pilot scheme for other access roads

Martin Zettel — Unit for Public Space in the Department of Urban Planning, City of Graz in consultation with Bernhard Inninger — Head of the Department of Urban Planning, City of Graz

1. WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE SITE MUTATION? The new zoning plan should trigger an investment boost leading to the following developments: higher density in building construction activities and new activities, as well as a new category or role model for access roads transforming the existing road into an urban boulevard.

2. HOW CAN THE SITE BE INTEGRATED IN THE ISSUES OF PRODUCTIVE CITIES? HOW DO YOU CONSIDER THE PRODUCTIVITY ISSUE? The existing situation is already set up by various productive trade and businesses — on one hand this should not be eliminated but instead sustained, on the other hand supplemented in form of a street-sided mixed-use development.

3. HAVE YOU ALREADY DEFINED A SPECIFIC PROCESS FOR THE URBAN AND/OR ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SITE AFTER EUROPAN? The new zoning plan is already in its final phase, the zoning map (Bebauungsplan) is imposed and public participation processes should be strongly implemented. A first planning process for the new road design already started.

Unfolding the Fan

AUTHOR(S) — Radostina Radulova-Stahmer (AT), Architect-urbanist CONTRIBUTOR(S) — Deniza Horländer (DE), Architect

GRAZ (AT) — WINNER

CONTACT — STUDIO D3R Mannheim (DE) / Graz (AT) info@studiod3r.com, www.studiod3r.com

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — Unfolding the Fan proposes the development of the linear street into an open space network linking the element of the street in the depth with the surrounding landscape, from the hills to the Mur landscape. The linearity of the streetscape is subdivided through green corridors permeating the Kärntner street, creating four different sequences with specific characters. Dense closed building typologies frame the streetscape. The fanlike arrangement creates a rhythm of the street and breaks it down to human scale. The street buildings are three to five stories high but are, also, highly permeable in order to create a dense network to increase walkable distances of maximum ten minutes. Small-scale urban housing typologies are mediating between the backbone of the street and the residential area behind.

JURY POINT OF VIEW — The project addresses three main issues: lateral connections, the identification of different sequences and the pooling of plots. The proposal is highly acknowledged for looking at a broader scale and connecting the Kärtner Strasse with transversal links to the broader periphery. Thereby, the proposal aims at creating new centralities both on the main street and in the intersecting streets. The project shows a sensitive approach to the streetscape and its different stages. It interprets the street as a series of urban nodes at crossing points of important transversal connections. These nodes act as local sub-centres and define the network of the city on a larger scale.

Good Morning City!

AUTHOR(S) — Leonard Higi (DE), Anna Kübler (DE), Architects-urbanists; Christiane Kolb (DE), Urbanist, landscape architect CONTACT — Team kollektivnordsüd, Tübingen (DE) T. +49 15154711511 hello@kollektivnordsued.de, www.kollektivnordsued.de

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — “Backyard Forward!” by kollektivnordsüd is based on a broad conception of urban productivity. This comprises more than light and heavy industry and material output. It defines itself as the product of a city’s emergent processes —the surplus a city delivers beyond pure self-sufficiency. The traditional typology of the backyard is interpreted in a new way and mediates between different morphologies — detached housing in the second row and Kärntner Strasse. It also accommodates different typologies, which again attract a wide range of uses. The common yard area promotes exchange, communication and creates its own identity. The stable framework is completed by public facilities and places which accompany the new multi-modal mobility channel of Kärntner Strasse and serve as backbone for a long-term transformation process.

AUTHOR(S) — Natalia Vera Vigaray (ES), Patxi Martin (ES), Tijn Van de Wijdeven (NL), Architects

GRAZ (AT) — SPECIAL MENTION

CONTACT — office-shophouse, Bangkok (TH), T. +66 989670431 atofficeshophouse@gmail.com, www.office-shophouse.com

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — Good Morning City! is based on transitions in space, motion and time. The project incorporates incremental, spatial limits and thresholds from street to room. Experience is generated through distinct degrees of speed, destinations and subjective interests. Good Morning City! is not based on a final image; the qualities of the neighbourhood are embedded along intermediate stages of change and development. We intend to unify working and living conditions by means of progressive development in which intensification of the built environment is the key to generate an alternative entry to Graz. The productive city is not understood as a programmatic attempt but rooted within the process of urbanization itself.