








housing aspern vienna
1 / 9
competition entry
location: Vienna
client: Wien 3420 Aspern Development AG in cooperation with the City of Vienna
project: 2015
Bevk Perović project team:
Matija Bevk
Vasa J. Perović
Martin Tomažič
Juan Miguel Hererro
Irene Salord
Blaž Goričan
3d visualization: Urban Petranovič
Aspern, as we see it today, is a typical example, including the typical outcome, of an attempt to expand cities towards periphery – very quickly, and far too often, these examples become monotonous, socially underdeveloped sites, proliferation of buildings rather than a city.
The formal redefinition of the ‘traditional’ city block – proposed by the urban plan – is both an asset and a handicap – its ‘unusual’ form requiring specific solutions, and at the same time creating problematic interior solutions in case of perimeter construction.
Instead of perimeter block, which supports the idea of extreme opposites of the ‘inside’ in relation to the ‘outside’ conditions, we propose an ‘open perimeter’ – a hybrid structure consisting of a series of joined and independent buildings, lining the perimeter yet open towards the city streets. The edges of the new block remain defined, yet permeable. The new block becomes an ‘accumulation’ of built structures, volumetrically and programmatically connected, lined – like a string of pearls – around the interior courtyard.
The interior courtyard is an elevated platform/garden, raised one floor from the level of the ‘city’, connected to it via large access stairs/ramps. It is a hybrid of park and square, of park and terrace – a large wooden deck covered in greenery, very usable, yet very ‘green’. It is a kind of ‘glue’ that keeps the block together, both socially and formally.
The buildings – unlike the ‘traditional’ division of services and public spaces on the ground floor and the housing on the upper floors, they can be conceived as vertically mixed programmatic structures – scattered programmes throughout the buildings’ sections (of differing heights), with circulation concept that enables easy access to all floors of the buildings.
The units proposed – a large array of different units – are stacked vertically – becoming a kind of ‘vertical city’, an accumulation of different ‘open’ typologies using the changing sections of the buildings.