Feßtgasse Housing | Ottokar Uhl
Austria | 1980 | soft form
Image Credit: ©Architekturzentrum Wien, Sammlung
Project Information
| Address: | Feßtgasse 12-14, Vienna |
| Work Type: | new built |
| Context: | inner city |
| Location: | city centre |
| Number of Storeys: | 7-storey |
| Type of Building: | tenement / apartment house [detached] |
Description
Like Uhl’s earlier Wohnen Morgen project, this building exploited flexible design with the aim of generating maximum participation of tenants in the design process. Indeed, it was the first project in the history of Viennese public housing were tenants could determine their apartments.
The building consists of a basic three-bay structure of loadbearing crosswalls with a central staircase that serves up to three apartments per storey. The only fixed elements within an otherwise empty shell are toilets and bathrooms, which are located against the crosswalls, and a service duct on the opposite side of the wall, which indicates the position of the kitchen, without determining its final layout. Openings in the loadbearing concrete walls serve as access doors or as connection between various rooms in dwellings occupying more than one bay. Thus the space in the central bay can either be a small self-contained apartment, or else an extension to one of the apartments in the side bays. The positions of the facades on the front or the rear were not fixed to start with, allowing the size of the apartments to be varied. By placing the facade at the most inward possible point, an apartment unit can be as small as 11.4 by 5.8 metres or, by placing the facade as far out as possible, as big as 15 by 5.8 metres, In practice the majority of tenants chose the largest possible option, though there is some variation in the addition of external balconies to some units.References
Bielicki, J. S., 'Wohnhaus der Gemeinde Wien'
Froyen, H.-P., 'A review of 3 projects: Wohnen Morgen in Hollabrunn, architects Ottokar Uhl and Jos P Weber; support-infill project for tenants in Vienna, architect Ottokar Uhl; and an examination of existing mass housing as support', Openhouse, 2, 1977, pp. 21-29.
Kamleithner, C., J. Porsch, and B. Steger, eds., Ottokar Uhl, Salzburg: Anton Pustet, 2005.