An ensemble of three high-rise buildings has been completed on the basis of a competition for the development of a new district next to Vienna’s Central Station that was won by Delugan Meissl Associated Architects in 2015.
The buildings are connected by a base that defines the edges of the plot and lends the external appearance of the quarter a decidedly urban tone. This is reinforced by the fact that, rather than using individual gestures such as cantilevered balconies or small-scale mesh as a means of differentiating the façades of the three building elements that they developed, DMAA employed an organising grid and homogeneous colour scheme in order to combine the individual volumes into a major urban form.
The specific uses are revealed in the façades by the dimension, rigour and plasticity of a grid that individually structures the continuous full-height glazing. The positioning and orientation of the buildings on the plot creates optimal views in each direction. The quarter can be explored via a generous network of paths.
Starting from a square that is located opposite the 21er Haus, the internal courtyard develops as a sequence of increasingly private external spaces. The ground floor zone is home to a restaurant, meeting rooms and the general public and leisure areas of the hotel as well as a kindergarten, whose private open space is located on the roof of the base, which is just one storey high at this point.
The 19 above-ground floors of the 60-metre-high residential tower contain 209 high-quality rental apartments with a total usable area of almost 17,000 m².
The hotel offers 133 studios and apartments of between 28 and 50 m². The ground-floor uses mentioned above include a foyer, a breakfast room and a bar as well as a fitness and wellness zone with pool.
Around 17,300 m² of office space are available on the 18 above-ground floors of the office tower, with each floor being divisible into a maximum of two units of 800 to 900 m². Alongside the lobby and the above-mentioned restaurant, the ground floor of the office tower is home to flexibly usable meeting rooms.
While a building was also realised according to plans from Coop Himmelb(l)au, the quarter is generally marked by a calm and continuously articulated formal language with great aesthetic force that is also reflected in the spatial quality and concrete materialisation of the interiors of the ensemble.
