SHORTLISTED PROJECT

TEAM REPRESENTATIVE:
Evelyn Temmel (AT) - architect
 
ASSOCIATE:
Bernhard Luthringshausen (AT) - architect
 
BASED IN:
Graz - Österreich
 
EMAIL:

SWITCHYARD

TEAM STATEMENT
 
“Bruck is an important infrastructural knot with high traffic volume but a lot of private green spaces scattered over the city.  The strategy for the study site is to link those two characteristics.

Through superimposing a park-like landscape with bands of parking lots the planning area gets transformed into a programmed field with various uses. The combination of parking and park leads to an almost absurd but interesting modulation.

The whole area is the ultimate drive-in: Drive-in-gardening, drive-in-cinema and drive-in-Yoga. But the car is just the catchpenny.

To require the transformation from a traffic interchange to a new urban and vital district there must be a strong demand at the beginning. There is a need for parking-lots, but what is proposed is not only parking: the site offers at the same time open space with qualities to linger and strolling around. A Boulevard links the site to the zone west of the Wiener Strasse. With the new train stop the site moves closer to public and regional interest and with the new Haus der Mitte some formal functions get intermixed with the informal activities on site.

Lots of industrial facilities in Bruck, FH Joanneum in Kapfenberg and Montanuniversität Leoben are directly connected through the railway. That enhances the potential of the area for being a Hub to this Industrial Thinkbelt.  It becomes a center for sharing knowledge and working together, a testing field and laboratory for visions and ideas–truly a Heart of the Region.”