Common Green

COMMON GREEN CONSTRUCTING THE COMMONS

AMBIGUOUS EDGES WORKSHOP 09/2018

Ferdinand Klopfer Martin Eichler Patricia Țibu Nathaniel Loretz

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THE PATH/ CONNECTING URBAN LEFT— OVERS

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CONSTRUCTING THE COMMONS

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AMBIGUOUS EDGES WORKSHOP 09/2018

Ferdinand Klopfer Martin Eichler Patricia Țibu Nathaniel Loretz

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What role do residual areas play in the urban fabric? What is their potential for collaborative actions and what tools are needed to unlock their qualities?

To what extent do such indefinite areas structure their environment and what if new paths could be opened up by them?

What attitudes do these spaces encourage or cultivate among by-passers as well as people who find themselves in their proximity on a daily basis?

[fig. 1] Passing through the gate/ testing the frames on site.

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COMMON ISLANDS

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As common islands or common green’s we define the leftovers of green surfaces that appear as fragments in the whole urban fabric. This fields can be find especially spreading around the street spaces, usually working as separation between different lanes or parking lots as a result of infrastructural planning rules. Also they appear as hidden realms and yet semi private goods in the backyards and in-between zones that wait to be explored and unlocked to the public.

In contrast to the existing parks these fields have no programmatic approach to a certain kind of usage and work more in a sense of compensation space between the structures and functionalities that form the city’s morphology. Their characteristic is mostly determined through the appearance of basic elements like a lawn or earth surface, a tree and wildgrowth and seem to have a neutral attitude towards the surrounding through their absence of conscious usage.

Most of these spaces are usually no points of interest for orientation and even seem to fade out of a collective attention. Still they have a high potential as non commercial and neutral areas that wait to be animated through the traveller who visits or occupies them.

Their lack of program allows imaginations for all kind of actions that so far doesn’t find a place in the surrounding city structure.

In this sense we see these fields as islands, floating in a urban fabric which is formed through commercial and functional tendencies. Giving a sharp focus towards these kind of islands while walking around the city proposes a different kind of path. Especially in the area around the Sonnwendgasse, orientation along these islands as knot points seem to fade out the experienced contrast between old and new build housing blocks and allows a different view to the city development and the meaning of this common greens for the public.

[fig. 1] Branches in front of a Gemeindebau housing complex. → Temporal green island as a disturbing element in an urban fabric.

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MAPPING

We started our investigation with the exploration and mapping of the leftover fields. In the dense building structure of the Sonnwendviertel, these spaces are rare and seem to clenched occur at certain corners. The single particles can be connected to a path that oscillates between the both sides of the axis Sonnwendgasse/Gudrunstrasse.

While focusing on these green islands the remaining city gets send to the background. Their common quality is the lack of a program or certain intention towards the user which makes them a valuable common good.

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fig. 1

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fig. 3

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[fig. 1] Unused lawn surface/ supermarket parking lot [fig. 2] Collage/ testing the visual appearance of the frame constructions [fig. 3] Wild flowers on island in front of office “Die Grünen” → Increasing quality through common appropriation [fig. 4] Sketch/ locating green fragments along the street

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SPATIAL CORRELATIONS

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Patricia Țibu

[fig. 1] Concept sketches

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In a society that is continuously growing apart, the concept of “commons” has not yet ceased to exist; however it becomes increasingly faceted acquiring various meanings which imperceptibly penetrate into the public conscience, thus gaining the status of a shaping force.

Our project tackles the ramifications of this shaping force on an urbanistic spatial level as well as on a social level. We chose to define as “common islands” or “common greens” what first might appear as leftover spaces which took the form of small land fragments covered in different types of vegetation; they can be found especially by streets, separating parking lots or street lanes. In contrast to green areas such as parks, there is an obvious lack of programmatic character to these spaces which are ultimately recognized as compensation space between urban structures and functionalities.

Rather than fulfilling the primary instinct of enhancing or bringing order among these empirical structures born by chance, our approach was to demarcate them clearly and unambiguously while introducing them in a network meant to charge the potential of each individual area. This approach is based upon our investigation of these areas which concluded in establishing them roughly as places which invite a longer stay and places to pass through. Based on this classification, the spaces acquire the potential of becoming relevant knots which superimpose an additional layer on the city fabric when they are weaved together. This layer serves as a “common”, providing the users with a different feeling towards the conditions of the urban context.

Our intervention is firstly meant to mark these places and then to link them; it is worth mentioning that it serves as an attempt at discovery and not invention. By including wooden objects which resemble elements that we surpass as part of our daily routine;

more exactly elements that we associate with thresholds, we define what is considered as an area of interest, and at the same time we place it in relation to another such area thus creating a connection which accentuates the presence of both. The intervention has an almost antithetical character as it clearly creates a threshold, automatically inducing the idea of a barrier while its ultimate purpose is to unlock the qualities of the space.

This opposition comes as a consequence of the answer to the issue of acknowledging variations and differences within the urban structure; as one important tool in valorizing these areas is perceiving the friction or contrast between the characteristics of the examined island and the characteristics of the surrounding space.

As a system, the elements of our intervention work in the direction of creating an alternative path between the investigated green islands by (as mentioned) marking them, indicating a certain trajectory and ultimately suggesting a certain attitude: more dynamic or more static towards the area. By placing focus on these knots, the surrounding area becomes faded, thus having less impact on the visitor. The factors that design the experience of the audience are the characteristic contained within the newly created network.

Through the size of the fragments, the distance between them and their quality of being inviting or non-inviting, a certain navigation rhythm is set which will become a lens through which the general environment is grasped. In the context of the discrepancy between the newly developed Sonnwendviertel and the previously established area of the 10th District of Vienna, the newly added layer could serve as a mitigating common as it moves the focal point from the planned, constructed infrastructure to the reality of the in between spaces which could be regarded as mainly inherited commons.

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fig. 1

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[fig. 1] Test set-up at the Gebietsbetreuung. [fig. 2] Axonometric/ The single fragments with different qualities get connected to a bigger system, through traveling along them.

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THE INTERVENTION

[fig. 1] Finished frames and bearing elements waiting to be installed on the islands.

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Looking for spaces without a certain private ownership and program isn’t a easy task in a dense and new built city structure like the Sonnwendviertel, where every square meter seems to be part of a lager scaled planning and functionality. But still some fragments can be found that appear as leftovers and fill the last angles of the street scape.

Our approach was to locate and map these leftovers and to point out their hidden potential as common goods. To indicate their spatial possibilities we try to transform these inconspicuous narrow fields in a autonomous room. To enter it a threshold needs to be overcome or a gate to be passed through. The Intervention works with the placement and arrangement of wooden elements on a selection of the green islands around the crossing Sonnwendgasse/ Gudrunstrasse.

To create a space that waits to be entered we developed simple frame constructions in three different sizes. The frame as a fundamental architectural element immediately creates a room and makes an inner and outer realm visible. Its orientation is a hint for the direction of a vector path passing through it and connecting the fragments as an archipelago. To a by passer, the frame suggests to enter the island, the stair element provides a scale. The plastic tarp blurs out the surrounding and creates a more intimate athmosphere and can be seen as the as a symbolization for the temporal and fluid happenings, that could take place on the islands.

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fig. 1

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fig. 3

[fig. 1] Plastic tarp as a symbol of protection, blurring the outer realities [fig. 2] Entrance and Exit/ come/stay/leave [fig. 3] Frame elements/ different arrangements

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fig. 1

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fig. 2

[fig. 1] First design sketch → Wooden structure covered with plastic foil as a gate element. [fig. 2] Collage/ Frame elements creating a complex space and make the inconspicuous common field visible.

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SEQUENCE/ THE PATH

[fig. 1] Pattern/ Distance from the triangle as zero point. /Imaginary path and duration of stay [fig. 1] Spatial network of leftover archipelago/ possible connections

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Since the focus is set on the islands, the surrounding cityscape becomes a continuous concrete mass as a equivalent to a grey sea.

In this metaphor the in-between space becomes the background surface where the common green’s are the only points for orientation and destination.

In this sense the distance between these islands is the only important parameter. Traveling between the islands on countless possible paths creates a sequence or rhythm which is defined by the distance of in-between paths and the duration of stay.

Through size, location and contained elements the fields provide different qualities which either invite to a longer stay, a certain activity or a just a fast passing through. The green triangle at the corner Sonnwendgasse and Gudrunstrasse is set as the zero point of the archipelago. From this point the fragments spread to both sides along the border of the new and old Sonnwend area.

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SIMULATION

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With a animation we tried to figure out how the path could look like in a methaporic translation. While in the beginning the city structure is visibible it fades out more and more during the test run and the islands are the only remaining elements in a grey nebula.

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