Located in the second district of Vienna within a dynamic urban development, Hochhaus Viertel Zwei by Mario Cucinella Architects together with local architects Zechner & Zechner ZT GmbH and landscape architects WES GmbH will provide the city with two new connected towers that have distinct functions and personalities.
This project, which won an invitation-only competition, consists of two multifunctional towers located in the 2nd district of the city of Vienna, where the important ‘Viertel Zwei”, a dynamic urban development, has been taking place in recent years.
The requirement to provide a complex of two large buildings with two clearly differentiated functions, within a relatively restricted land area, resulted in the design of two towers that use two different heterogeneous architectural languages and have two strong personalities, which made it possible to compose a complex urban image that is also inserted organically into its context.
The towers are about 120 m and 90 m high respectively, with a total gross floor area of approximately 85,000 square metres, and contain spaces designed to a very high standard of quality that are ideal for living and working.
The two buildings are connected by a canopy that is enhanced with planting and acts as a ‘covered walkway’ aligned precisely on the most important urban axis of the new neighbourhood.
All the main entrances face this axis, forming a ‘gateway’ to the new ‘Viertel Zwei’.
The canopy also provides protection from downdraughts of wind, which can often make the areas around tall or very tall buildings very inhospitable.
The particular shape of the canopy was designed after carrying out an in-depth study with the assistance of wind and ground comfort consultants; it incorporates large oval openings whose edges act as spoilers that protect the spaces below, enabling them to be used at almost any time of the year.
These were the starting points that generated the complex interplay of surfaces, terraces, and canopies that give the new residential tower, the ‘GRÜNBLICK’, its horizontal emphasis and that shape its geometry.
These surfaces, with their decorative planting, alternate in a way that suggests that the living spaces are suspended overhead, between the park and the city.
The ‘GRÜNBLICK’ tower was in fact conceptualized as an upwards vertical extension of the surrounding context that includes the large Prater Park, creating a relationship of continuity between this landscaped context and the newly constructed vertical space that is not only visual but above all qualitative.
The architectural language of the tower is based on the rhythm of the upwards movement of the floors, which are marked by slight movements of their projections and recesses to create an organic and rational image.
The large flat floor planes appear to slide one over the other like sheets, allowing natural daylight to enter the apartments and common parts whilst protecting them from excessive solar radiation and screening them from wind.
The office tower, the ‘WEITBLICK,’ was conceptualised as an iconic building that intentionally stands out from its context as a clearly defined, streamlined geometrical shape that enhances its own verticality.
The building is required to accommodate both working spaces and service functions, and for that reason the internal floor layouts and the façade system are designed to optimise natural lighting in the interiors whilst minimising glare and overheating.
The double-skin façade ensures that the external enclosure of the building is appropriately protected and ventilated.
Its architectural character is generated by the rhythm of the vertical sun-shading fins, which effectively protect the more exposed eastern and western-facing sides from direct solar radiation whilst emphasising the light, vertical aesthetic of the tower.
Its elliptical shape on plan is designed to minimise air turbulence by following the direction of the prevailing winds.
The WEITBLICK tower is designed to achieve ÖGNI/DGNB Platinum certification and the GRÜNBLICK tower aims to achieve Gold certification.
An independent combined heat and power (CHP) energy network serves the whole site and is based on a geothermal system with heat pumps with the capacity to provide heating and cooling sustainably to all users.
By adding these two new landmark buildings to the Vienna skyline, the project offers a vision that goes beyond the mere construction of a new high-density district.
It also brings the opportunity to amplify the urban space by enabling all the residents, workers, and visitors to move through a vertical landscape of spaces that are innovative but also familiar and welcoming, and that offer evocative views over the city and the vast natural expanse of the Prater Park.
Project: Hochhaus Viertel Zwei
Architects: Mario Cucinella Architects
Project Directors: Giulio Desiderio and Cristina Gambioli
Design Leaders: Stefano Massa and Michele Olivieri
Project Leaders: Maria Elena Beccaria Balduzzi, Ulrich Seum, and Kai Felix Dorl
Landscape Designers: WES GmbH
Local Architects and BIM Coordinators: Zechner & Zechner ZT GmbH
Structural Engineers: KS Ingenieure ZT GmbH
Client: Weitblick Tower: VIERTEL ZWEI Entwicklung GmbH & Co Weitblick KG | Gruenblick Tower: VIERTEL ZWEI KRIEAU GmbH
Images: MCA Visual, Value One, and Mir.