Urban Design Studio Retrofit 3.0

Some impressions on our final urban design studio event Retrofit 3.0 at the city hall in the district Brigittenau, in Vienna.

The urban design studio is an academic semester project by students and lecturers of the department of urbanism, TU Wien together with the City of Vienna – Wiener Wohnen (social housing), the district council of Wien Brigittenau and other key-stakeholders of planning- and architecture related departments of the Viennese city government. In the design studio we focused on ensemble of the existing Viennese social housing stock. Despite of the topic of urban retrofitting considering the building stock, we are specifically paying attention to the topic’s participation & spatial justice, climate adaption, landscape, and circularity. During the event on the fourth of march the students presented their final urban design projects followed by an organized plenum session with and among key-stakeholders.

In our work as Research Initiative Retrofit Wien (Forschungsinitiative Retrofit_Wien) we understand the term “urban retrofitting” not only paying attention to the future proof transformation of the existing social housing stock, but rather work on a holistic understanding including public space and landscape in the perspective of social housing of tomorrows city.

Thank you to all the participating key stakeholders for the fruitful discussions and most importantly: Thank you to the highly motivated 16 students of TU Wien, department of urbanism, for the inspiring urban design projects that help to contribute to the ongoing debate on future-proof transformation of the existing city.