Date Type: Construcción

Lohbach Residences

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Lohbach Residences

Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

This housing development, located in Innsbruck, features six buildings with five to seven storeys, offering a total of 298 apartments. The car-free zones, designed by artists, serve as playgrounds and are accessible via paved paths. The apartments have French windows leading to balconies, providing ample free spaces accessible from every room. Copper shutters and satinated glass parapets offer sun protection, weather resistance, and privacy. The development includes a supervised home for the elderly and apartments equipped for elderly or disabled individuals. Sustainability, ecological standards, comfort, and low operational costs are prioritized in this new part of Innsbruck. The compact buildings with varying heights optimize space and offer views of the surrounding landscape. The use of shutters on the balconies allows for a flexible balance between private and public life. The planning process emphasizes software over hardware, resulting in cost savings without compromising quality. The staircases and surface materials maintain a high standard uncommon in social housing projects.

Date

  • 2000: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Baumschlager Eberle / be St Gallen

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Innsbruck
Country/Region: Austria

Description

This housing development is located at the west end of the Franz-Baumann-Weg and forms the border between the residential and agricultural zones in the western part of Innsbruck. The 298 apartments of the complex are spread out over six buildings with five to seven storeys, accessed via a system of paved paths and areas. Designed by artists, these zones are car free and also utilised by children as playgrounds. A covered entrance area leads to the large stairways lit from overhead from which the units are accessed. All openings to the outside are French windows providing access to the balconies that run around the buildings. As a result, each apartment disposes of generous free spaces accessible from every room. Shutters made of copper and parapets of satinated glass serve as a protection from sun and weather and provide privacy. There is a supervised daily home for elderly people in one of the buildings and apartments with special equipment for elderly or handicapped persons. All houses have direct access to the underground car park.
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This new part of Innsbruck is characterised by sustainability, high ecological standards, comfort for the inhabitants and minimal operational costs. The energy savings for space heating and domestic hot water heating amount to approximately 70 per cent compared to conventional dwellings of the same size. The placement of these six extremely compact buildings with different height levels permits that the spaces between have been omptimised while providing for a high density. These spaces offer interesting views of the surrounding landscape and the use of the shutters on the balconies mediates the relationship between private and public life allowing for continual change and in accordance with the inhabitants needs.

The aim to use more software and less hardware in the whole planning process has been achieved without compromising on quality. Cost savings for the inhabitants have been achieved on invisible parts and both the generously dimensioned staircases with stone floors and the high standard of surface materials are not often found in social housing projects.

Authors:

Schots 1 and 2

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Schots 1 and 2

Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2002: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: S333 Architecture + Urbanism

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Groningen
Country/Region: Groningen, Netherlands

Description

Further to winning the Europan 3 competition, in 1994 S333 were commissioned to develop a structure plan for the CiBoGa terrain, a 14-h, post-industrial site on the edge of the centre of Groningen.S333 identified the site as being part of a larger urban ring structure of strategic importance to the city’s ecological structure. The urban plan adopted by the city proposes 13 schotsen “compact building blocks eroded internally by new forms of semi-public space”, which float in an open landscape that operates as a filter zone between the city centre and the 20th-century housing extensions. Schots 1 and 2 resolve the conflict between the desire for spatial openness and the requirements for programmatic intensification by creating a “volumetric landscape” of 300 underground parking places, 110 winter gardens, 105 apartments, 44 houses, 14 patios, eight shops, four vertical gardens, three collective roof gardens, two courtyards, two supermarkets, and one medical centre. Schots 1 and 2 could be seen as a contemporary reading of the “megaform”. This is a large complex system that extends horizontally and is capable of inflecting the existing urban landscape. It acts as a continuation of the surrounding topography and orients itself towards the densification of the urban fabric.

. Schots 1 and 2, within this plan, harmonize spatial openness and programmatic intensification, accommodating various facilities such as parking, gardens, apartments, houses, shops, and medical centers. These blocks represent a contemporary interpretation of the "megaform" concept, extending horizontally and integrating with the existing urban fabric. Schots 1 features a multi-storey glass facade with varying transparency levels, while the building's design concentrates density at specific points and incorporates roof terraces that connect with the surroundings. Therefore Schots 1 and 2 are conceived as a single building form, which is nonetheless sculpted by flows that allow the blocks to evolve independently above street level. Schots 1, a robust multi-storey block, is clad entirely in floor-to-ceiling glass with varying levels of transparency, reflection and opacity. Filling the awkward site, rather than imposing its mass directly on its surroundings the building concentrates the density at three points, creating in-between roof terraces that mediate with the context.

Authors:

Chassé Park Apartments

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Chassé Park Apartments

Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2002: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Xaveer De Geyter Architects

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Breda
Country/Region: Breda, Netherlands

Description

This apartment block is part of an urban plan by OMA, focused on preserving open space in a former military base for a new public park while achieving housing density similar to the city center. The project includes five residential towers on a parking ring surrounding a sunken inner garden. The towers are positioned closely together, with different orientations based on factors like views, sunlight, and the composition of the parking ring and inner garden. The towers vary in the number of apartments per floor, resulting in minor differences in ground plans. The façades feature white glazed brick, vertical windows alternating with concrete panels, and glass panels with a concrete structural mesh. Each apartment has a spacious winter garden that can be used as an external space or an extension of the living room. This apartment block forms part of an urban plan by OMA, which was focussed on preserving as much as possible of the open space of a former military base for conversion into a new public park, while creating a housing density similar to the one in the city centre. This was achieved by a campus model, in which very different building types are juxtaposed inside the park. Given the diversity of scale, typology and materials involved, the coherence of the plan is provided by the park. The project consists of five residential towers on top of a parking ring, which surrounds a sunken inner garden onto which the entrances to each tower open. The light, transparent parking ring rises 1.5 m above ground level. The towers are positioned tightly together, each with its own orientation, their position relative to one another determined by factors such as outward and inward views, exposure to sunlight, the layouts of the parking ring and the inner garden, and the transparency of the composition. Three of the five towers have two apartments per floor, the fourth has one and the fifth has four. The varying relative position of the towers creates minor differences in ground plans.

The façades overlooking the inner garden are of white glazed brick to reflect sunlight, and have small horizontal windows. Other façades feature vertical windows alternating with anthracite prefabricated concrete panels with a slate inlay. The third type of façade consists entirely of glass panels, some with a concrete structural mesh behind the glass. The parking garage roof is of translucent polyester. Each apartment has a large winter garden, with sliding glass walls opening both outwards and inwards, which may be used as an external space, as an extension of the living room or as a separate room.

Authors:

Herold Social Housing

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Herold Social Housing

Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2007: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: MGM morales-giles-mariscal

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Cadiz
Country/Region: Cádiz, Spain

Description

This social housing project includes 100 apartments of various sizes, with the ground floor reserved for handicapped individuals and street-level shops. The design of the three buildings was influenced by the site conditions and their integration into the urban space. The apartments are accessed from a public garden at ground level, and they are distributed along exterior walkways. The design takes into account different orientations and seasons, with north-facing rooms designed for thermal isolation and south-facing rooms featuring glazed living areas and balconies with sliding ETFE curtains for winter use. Solar thermal panels on the roof provide 65% of the hot water for the bathrooms. The project embodies urban and ecological principles to create a new housing solution. The programme for this social housing project required 100 different-sized apartments with the ground floor for handicapped persons and shops at the street level. Located on land left-over from the Herold Hospital in Paris’ 19th arrondissement, numerous site factors conditioned the design of the three buildings, which led to thinking about them as resultant elements from the urban space. Accessed from a ground-level public garden, the apartments are distributed along exterior walkways. Since they face different orientations, their design has been adapted to the different seasons: rooms oriented towards the north have small openings and greater thermal isolation, while those facing south have glazed living rooms and bedrooms adjoining balconies that feature transparent sliding ETFE curtains, permitting wintertime use. Roof mounted solar thermal panels produce 65% of the hot water for the bathrooms. The project is thus the result of urban and ecological principles taken as the conceptual starting point in the creation of a new urban housing response.

Authors:

Sphinxes

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Sphinxes

Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2003: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Neutelings Riedijk Architects

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Huizen
Country/Region: Netherlands

Description

The five 'sphinxes' feature fourteen apartments each, maximizing sunlight and lake views. The buildings taper towards the water, creating a distinctive profile resembling a sphinx. The penthouse apartments in each block have unique designs, forming a striking skyline seen from the Stichtse Bridge. The fringe of reeds surrounding the sphinxes serves as a transition to the shore and a water treatment filter. Concrete landing stages provide access to the buildings, which have silver-coloured metal cladding. The public space includes lookout points, a surf beach, a village square, a wind balcony, and a fishing jetty.

The five 'sphinxes' each contain fourteen apartments arranged so as to make the most of the location and sun light. The blocks taper in plan towards the water thereby maximising unobstructed views of the lake both from the shore and from the apartments. As one moves up the building, each floor contains one less apartment. The result is a sphinx-like profile with the sun-oriented roof terraces situated on the slanting back of the mythical beast. The design of the penthouse apartments is different for each block giving rise to a rhythm of distinctive heads - a striking skyline seen from the shore approach of the Stichtse Bridge that links the new polders with the old mainland.

The sphinxes stand in a fringe of reeds that serves both as a gentle transition with the shore and a hydrophytic filter for water treatment. Concrete landing stages cut through the reeds to provide pedestrian access the sphinxes and next to them lie the sunken entrances leading to the underwater garages that double as foundation tanks. The façades are clad with silver-coloured metal sheets.

The public space has been designed as an integral part of the scheme. At five points along its length the esplanade turns into a look-out bastion, a surf beach, a village square, a wind balcony and a fishing jetty.

Authors:

Europan – Roubaix, France

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Europan – Roubaix, France

Mismatches
Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2010: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Bathile Millet

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Roubaix
Country/Region: France, Lille

Description

Villa Sarrail, a diverse and densified development, preserves the typological variety of the original Europan project. The architect reconstituted the building frontage and adjusted volumes to maintain typological variations. Multiple typologies and entrances were incorporated to promote diversity and encounters. The layout plan appears homogeneous, with dual-aspect apartments on the main street and rooftop houses on Rue Neuve. External spaces such as balconies and patios connect different parts of the development. The aim was to achieve social diversity while respecting densification requirements. The project also emphasizes the separation between public and private spheres and includes a route connecting the city and the residential heart of the island, along with housing extensions and shared spaces. The implementation process enhanced the project's morphological, functional, and social aspects. Villa Sarrail The architect succeeded to keep in the development of her project the typological variety present in the original Europan project.She reworked the project in two stages: first reconstituting the building frontage on all the plots, then changing the volumes in keeping with the typological variations. Multiple typologies to generate diversity, multiple entrances to facilitate encounter, are the basic principles of the team. The layout plan gives a deceptive impression of homogeneity: the frontage on the main street consisted of dual-aspect apartments, with small independent attic units above resembling rooftop houses. On Rue Neuve was a block of split-level apartments, and opposite the public car park, five four-storey townhouses. The different parts of the operation were bounded by decked external spaces, balconies or patios, available for use by the occupants.

The idea was to involve a social mix in a large typological variety while respecting the requirement of densification. Finally, this hypothesis was further amplified in terms of diversity through the work of precise distance between public and private spheres, by the development of a route between the city and residential heart of island, through the treatment of housing extensions and of shared spaces. Its implementation has revealed to all players in the operation of a value-added analysis process more complex but nevertheless leading the project on enriched morphological, functional or social tracks.

Links

Authors:

Europan – Innsbruck Olympic Village

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Europan – Innsbruck Olympic Village

Mismatches
Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2006: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Frötscher Lichtenwagner Architekten

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Innsbruck
Country/Region: Austria, Innsbruck

Description

This project is a multifunctional city within a city, catering to people of all ages. It includes social housing, assisted living apartments, a day-care centre, a youth club, a multifunctional hall, and a supermarket. It serves as a village within a village, connecting the surrounding Olympic Villages and providing a collective new center. The design showcases both meticulous urban planning and individual attention to detail. It fosters a sense of community, with teenagers gathering at the square and elderly individuals finding a supportive living environment. This mixed-use project successfully accommodates diverse populations, aligning with Europan's goal of promoting inclusivity.

This project is a small city built for people of all age groups, with a complete repertoire of different functions. It includes at the same time social housing for families, assisted living apartments, a day-care centre, a youth club, a multifunctional hall, a supermarket. It is a village in a village in a city… The project is both urban design and architecture, and it shows both an enormous control on the large scale and individual care and creativity on the level of its parts. It stands self-consciously in the middle of the two Olympic Villages, linking them, giving them a collective new centre, both formally and programmatically. Teenagers use the square as a place to hang out, elderly people have found a place where the can live on their own with help when needed. Thus, the capacity of the quarter to house all kinds of different people, one of the main reasons why Europan promotes mixed-use projects, has been increased.

Links

Authors:

Housing that is produced and housing that is needed

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Housing that is produced and housing that is needed

Mismatches

Main objectives of the project

A recent report highlights the housing crisis in Ghana, with an annual need of 70,000 units and a deficit of 250,000 units. Current delivery rate meets only 21% of demand. Housing is expensive, and low incomes make it unaffordable for many. Even low-cost government housing is beyond the reach of most households. The main obstacles include high land costs, financing challenges, expensive mortgages, inadequate infrastructure, complex approval procedures, limited building materials, institutional coordination issues, and governance for shelter provision. The goal is to provide affordable and sustainable housing with infrastructure and address these challenges by improving land supply, extending infrastructure development, promoting local building materials, and increasing access to credit.

Date

  • 2010: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: UN-HABITAT

Location

Continent: Africa
Country/Region: Ghana

Description

A recent report, Housing as a Strategy for Poverty Reduction in Ghana (2010), highlights how the Ghanaian housing problem is ‘a national development crisis’ as there is a current annual need of 70,000 units, in addition to the accumulated deficit of 250,000 units ‘needed to de-crowd urban households from over 10 to 7’ occupants per house. In the coming twenty years an average annual delivery of 133,000 is needed, far more than the current delivery rate of only 28,000 units (equating to only 21 per cent of demand). 

Housing in Ghana is simply too expensive and incomes are too low. A low-cost government housing project house costs a minimum of 9,000 USD. However, this is prohibitively expensive for low-, and even many middle-income households. The report states ‘given the current minimum wage is 1.3 cedis per day (0.87 USD), it will take someone on the minimum wage 17 years to service the loan, excluding interest, and committing his or her entire salary to it’. 

Therefore, a quick calculation indicates that if he or she spends half their income on servicing the loan (still a considerable proportion of income), it will take 34 years to pay off the principal only. Furthermore, this assumes he or she has formal, reliable fixed employment contract, has the required down-payment, and has the credit worthiness to secure a loan in the first place, all of which are not common for many Ghanaian households. In Ghana and throughout Africa, even for a ‘low-cost’ government house, there are evidently many obstacles to obtaining and retaining housing that households can afford. 

The most vulnerable groups are the urban and rural poor, most of whose houses are built with poor quality materials and with little or no basic services and infrastructure, such as adequate drainage and waste disposal systems. Key factors hindering the effective delivery of housing in Ghana include the following: 

The cost of land and its accessibility; 
Financing; 
The high cost of mortgages; 
Infrastructural development; 
Development approval procedures; 
Availability and cost of building materials; 
Institutional coordination; 
Governance for shelter provision.  

Therefore, the ultimate goal of the country’s housing policy is to provide adequate, decent and affordable housing that is accessible and sustainable with infrastructural facilities to meet the needs of Ghanaians. This will be complemented by the following policies that address the challenges listed above. 

Improve the supply of serviced land available for housing, especially for the target groups. 
Extend infrastructural development to all parts of the country and ensure access to all citizens through a clear infrastructure policy and development programmes. 
Develop, produce and promote greater use of local alternative building materials of acceptable quality to effectively respond to the housing construction needs of the majority of the country’s population. 
Provide greater access to credit, especially for the target groups. 

Links

Authors:

Europan – Wien, Austria

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Europan – Wien, Austria

Mismatches
Policies and regulations
Urban Design
Promotion and production

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2022: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Arenas Basabe Palacios arquitectos

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Vienna
Country/Region: Austria, Vienna

Description

Arenas Basabe Palacios was runner-up with their project Urban Software to E12 competition. Their project proposed a strategy prioritising the process over the final result, based on the generation of a flexible support able to react to the various scales and context conditions. This award allowed them to take part in the design of the Siemensäcker urban planning for a new 8 hectares residential neighbourhood in the north of Vienna. This urban project was developed through a collaborative process with a dozen or so offices of experts in urbanism, architecture, landscape, mobility, energy,etc.

Once the masterplan was passed in December 2016, the owner of the land (Austrian Real State) commissioned us with the design of 65 housing units, distributed in three blocks of different dimensions (sizes S, M, L).

The project takes advantage of the different building scales and free spaces foreseen in the planning to connect itself to the diverse urban fabrics that surround it and to adapt to the topography and landscape. The scale of the buildings is attenuated thanks to the volumes that project outwards from the façade, which also stablish specific relationships with the surrounding elements, spaces and axes. In parallel to the design of the architecture, we are still involved in the ‘Qualitätenkatalog’- the group of experts that collectively define the qualities of the free space, the landscape, the common parking space and the management of the non-residential uses of the neighbourhood. In this manner, individual decisions are made based on collective work, and vice versa: it is thus a design process that unifies the disciplines of the architecture and urbanism, establishing guidelines at building and neighbourhood scales simultaneously.

Each housing unit is organized around a nucleus of furniture, which integrates within every storage, installation and serving unit. Thanks to this, all living spaces are connected to the exterior, reserving for the ‘day area’ (kitchen-sitting room-dinning room) the area wich will enjoy, due to its two orientations, the most daylight hours.

Links

Authors:

Urban Spaces 2 / Mumuleanu 14 Apartment Building

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Urban Spaces 2 / Mumuleanu 14 Apartment Building

Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2020: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Constructor: ADN Birou de Arhitectura

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Bucharest
Country/Region: Bucharest, Romania

Description

The project densifies and preserves the character of Bucharest's central neighborhood. It consists of 7 house-like volumes arranged along the site, creating a community of 20 unique apartments. The building's shape opens towards the core of the city, with an access courtyard and private gardens. The design takes inspiration from the wagon-type dwellings, with duplex apartments on the ground floor and an elevated gallery for access to the upper floors. The project balances density with the neighborhood's atmosphere, respecting its character. The structure uses concrete frames and plaster as a façade material, preserving traditional craftsmanship.
The project densifies a fragmented neighborhood in central Bucharest. It works with local dwelling typologies, in an attempt to preserve the flavour of small corners, courtyards, gardens, long narrow houses which all used to fill the old center of Bucharest, and which are quickly disappearing under a fast and mostly uncontrolled development process.

The apartments building is located within a very heterogeneous urban fabric. It consists of 7 house-like volumes, successively placed along the site, creating a community of 20 different apartments. The building’s imprecise outline opens less towards the street, and more towards the deep and diffuse core which is often hidden between Bucharest’s old streets. The elongated volume stretches from the street to the (deep) back of the site and stays connected to the street through an access courtyard that runs along the site’s western boundary. On the plot’s eastern side, the long and irregular strip of land is split into a sequence of private gardens.

The entrances’ careful customization and the units’ double orientation are borrowed from the characteristics of the wagon-type dwelling, a typical housing pattern in Bucharest’s old central neighborhoods. Thus, on the ground floor duplex apartments are entered directly from the common garden, like a series of “maisonettes”.

On the second floor, an external gallery runs along the whole building, as an elevated “alley” or garden, through which all apartments from the 2nd and 3rd+4th floor are accessed.

Bucharest’s central areas face nowadays a fast and rather chaotic densification. While we believe that density can, and many times is form of sustainability, we also admit that the relationship between habitation within an old urban fabric and the increase of its density is often a fragile one, as such areas and places of our city might lose their atmosphere and character. Our project tries to mediate between different sizes and densities, in a central neighborhood with small streets, long, narrow plots, and a puzzle of old and new buildings, of all types and scales, which is also not far from the socialist intervention of a large boulevard and its “curtain” of tall apartment blocks.

The project thus tries to work with a local typological criterion (the long “wagon-house”) and aims to respect and complete the neighborhood’s character, by attaching and overlapping within one long and fragmented building several dwellings with distinct, private entrances, porches, gardens, loggias or roof terraces. All units benefit from cross ventilation and open towards the more public West side (front) garden and towards the more intimate East side (back) garden.

The structure is made of concrete frames which carefully follow the shape of the 7 volumes. Beams are used only on transversal direction, within the walls between the apartments, allowing for higher openings on the long facades. The slabs are cantilevered towards the Western side, creating the intermediate spaces of the verandahs and open gallery. The slabs are tied together with thin steel columns, working as cross-ties and allowing for a deep façade, with a “portico” appearance.

At the same time, the project has searched to reclaim the plaster as a simple, yet beautiful façade material and technique. A very common and rich technique in Bucharest’s older architecture, it has recently almost disappeared, in a period when the whole city is being arbitrarily clad in polystyrene, with standard mechanized finishing. The plaster was applied and finished manually all around the building – all small errors were left visible, precisely because they enhance the beauty of the material. We believe that such “syncopes” complete the whole design’s expressiveness and may recover some of the “handcraft” techniques’ lost qualities.

Authors: