Heustadelgasse Housing Development

In conceptual terms the "Neue Siedlerbewegung" (new settlement movement) is positioned somewhere between a garden city and an allotment garden, between a row house estate and an estate of houses on garden plots. The planned organization of the row house is contrasted with the individuality and density of the allotment garden house. The new settlement movement reconstitutes itself within this field of tension.

The typology proposed for this project is based on a prototype which, thanks to its qualities, can produce a wide variety of house types that is certainly not completely exhausted here and indicates possibilities that go far beyond this project. The new estate house is built up consistently on the basis of point symmetry.

The notion of settlement, to be realized within the framework of social housing, is developed within a field of tension between the curb of the street in the East and the landscape in the West, as well as between the privacy of the garden plot and the openness of the common garden. To each of the houses an exactly defined area of terrace and garden is assigned to be used privately. However, a network of public and semi-public paths and places runs between those private spaces.

"People go for a walk in the housing development where they live!" You could hardly hear a nicer sentence from a resident! The finely woven network of routes that makes several loops through the developmente deliberately contrasts with sterile cul-de-sac models and the residents regard it extremely positively.