BORGL Viola Park

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"...school and sports...
...auditorium and gymnasium...
...as an open...[R]aum...
...[for the] school community...interconnected...":
"This is where the school community sees the spatial heart of the ball gymnasium."

Year

2022

Venue

Vienna

State

Competition

Category

Education

Size

10.934 m²

Year

Venue

State

Category

Size

2022

Vienna

Competition

Education

10.934 m²

Year

2022

Venue

Vienna

State

Competition

Category

Education

Size

10.934 m²

There is nothing more to add to this programmatic statement, quoted from the terms of reference of the competition, in its unambiguousness as a specification and at the same time articulation of a longing. All that remains for the architecture is to implement it as faithfully as possible.
Entrance, auditorium, multipurpose room, dining and recreation area, triple gymnasium: everything in an open space continuum, like a sports arena. The gymnasium is buried one floor deep, angularly surrounded by the aforementioned areas as well as by seating steps on three sides: one of them as part of the auditorium, the other two outside, connecting the gymnasium level with the natural level or the open spaces.

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Eight floor-to-ceiling steel trusses span the space with a span of 41 meters. In the west, they rest on V-shaped reinforced concrete columns and in the east on triangular compression/tension column combinations that grow out of the grandstand. The truss space is seen as part of communal overall space and houses the students' home bases. They reach their place to arrive, their areas to relax, communicate or

prepare for class directly from the auditorium via another set of seating steps. The home bases are grouped in a varied way around two small, green courtyards, which also bring daylight into the gymnasium, and are experienced as plateaus floating, as it were, above the school arena: They thus become identity-creating common areas as integral parts of the school community.

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With the two floors of the departments, one then enters another world. They are simply elevated on the trusses and designed as a full floor with an incised courtyard or U-shaped oriented to the neighborhood park. The administration is located on the 2nd floor, close to the auditorium. All teacher workstations are distributed decentrally and assigned to the respective departments. Both students and teaching staff have access to spacious open areas, either in the form of the courtyard or from terraces in front with a view of the park.

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In terms of urban planning, the building marks a clear "cornerstone" of the future residential development, but its fronts are articulated differently.

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Towards the Generali-Arena, a clear, plaza-forming edge is shown, which is somewhat inclined outwards, and itself carries a certain impression of a stadium, an arena. Towards the park, the building appears open and terraced; moreover, by means of seating steps, the terrain develops down to the level of the gymnasium, like a natural grandstand. The facades are intended to emphasize the urban references. While they are designed to be as

transparent as possible towards the park in the east, those in the other directions are covered with dense wooden slats. The wooden lamellas will be continued into the interior as soffit cladding below the 2nd floor, thus giving the home bases a particularly homely atmosphere. The façade facing Horrplatz is designed in a further differentiated manner. Here, the direction in which the slats are laid changes, following the logic of the direction of the soffit cladding.

"The gymnasium as the focal point" is thus not only a visible center inside, but also has an effect far out into the urban space as the "spatial heart of the ball sports gymnasium"!

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Open space planning

The school-related open space is divided into the adjacent first floor areas and the building greenery of the individual floors.
The required sports areas, running track, long jump track, hammer throw and volleyball are located on the site. These are connected to a path running around the building, which together with the adjacent running track also serves as an extended break room. Continuing the bleachers to the gymnasium, elongated benches provide a view of the open space. On the east side, instead of the top two rows of bleacher seating, an embankment is formed to provide green framing on both the garden side and the building side.
On the second floor, two lush garden pockets as courtyards carry a diverse wilderness deep into the center of the building, visually extending into the gymnasium. Above, corresponding to the staggering of the floors, green natural roofs divide terrace areas that provide a valuable complement to the interior spaces as break rooms or outdoor classes. Pre-cleaning and re-capturing rainwater, almost the entire floor plan is thus climatically activated and unsealed.

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Architecture

Pichler & Traupmann Architects

Design team

Bartosz Lewandowski (team leader)
Javier Arés Marín
Elisa Mazagg
Anna Salakhova-Chakhal
Andreas Schermann

Client

Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft m.b.H (BIG) Vienna

Structural fire protection

Norbert Rabl Ziviltechniker GmbH, Graz

Landscape planning

Lindle+Bukor - atelier für landschaft, Vienna

hard facts

Start of planning: 2022
Usable floor area: 7.331 m²
Gross floor area: 10.934 m²
Location: Vienna
Function: Federal upper secondary school for competitive athletes
Scope: EU-wide open, single stage competition

Renderings

Patricia Bagienski-Grandits, Vienna

Model

Harald Schmidt, Vienna

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