“Dealing with Infrastructures” was the title of the thematic area under which the organizers of Europan 7 placed the site located in Vienna; in fact it was probably a kind of paradigmatic case study: a triangular plot, placed in the outskirts of the city, surrounded by a heavy traffic way, an elevated underground line and crossed by a middle tension power line… anything else? Actually it was the typical “leftover” ground generated by the trace of the infrastructures surrounding it. The social housing developers that arrived before us had already built the area, but they left the “rest” waiting for a second opportunity. This “rest” was not just a real estate opportunity, but an opportunity to generate new urban life in a neighborhood placed in the periphery of the city without a clear representative image. The Perfektastrasse 58 site was full of opportunities waiting to be discovered… to recognize them was the beginning of the project. Due to the visibility given by the underground line, the plot was already part of the image of the city for a huge number of Viennese people in their way to the city center, so the project had to operate with it. Being close to Perfektastrasse U-bahn station pointed the plot as a proper place to increase the housing density, bringing more and more people and life into the area, following the theories proposed by the Transit Oriented Development. The plot had conditions to evolve into a new urban public space, a transit place in the way to the U6 station, but also a public space where celebrate collectively the everyday life. The absence of buildings on the other side of the elevated underground line allowed excellent views from the site to the landscape of Vienna when placed 8 meter high from the ground level. By last, the green condition of the plot while waiting for a “second opportunity”, gave an image to the context, but mainly a biodiversity, that could and should be preserved.
