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A small, long-established hairdresser’s salon required a complete makeover. The aim was to give the very tight space a breadth, in which, rather than becoming lost, clients could take a sensual, visual voyage of discovery, drawn in by the atmosphere. With the help of fine lime plaster and a jointless brown-red stone floor the almost cubic, 26-m² space is transformed into the “white cube”, at the heart of which stands an ivory-coloured item of furniture.

Much in the style of a baroque table cabinet – and much to the astonishment of the clients – this item of furniture accommodates everything needed by a fully-equipped salon: from the washing area, till, bar and storage space for care products, towels and glasses to a stair that leads to the elevated back office.

The interior of the ivory-coloured object has an orange finish and a multitude of mirrors, which ensure that, from certain angles, this interior dissolves in a diffuse infinity. The vertical wall mirrors and the reflective surface of the counter continue this game into the space. A net-like, droplet-shaped chandelier completes the atmosphere.

The typology developed for this project addresses the topic of flexible usage patterns: “Schalträume” (switch-rooms) enable residents to adapt their surroundings to changing lifestyles and circumstances. The switch-room can provide residents with an alternative entrance to the apartment and/or with a separate, autonomous space within the apartment.

It can be seen as a quasi-separate unit used for instant privacy, for work, or to allow for the coexistence of conflicting lifestyles. Or it can be reintegrated into the apartment as an ad-hoc extension. The “Fernraum” (lit. far-space) is another type of space that increases flexibility: it is accessible from the covered walkways of the housing estate and can be rented by any residents of the housing estate for office/workshop use, complete with sanitary facilities and kitchenette.

The body of the museum acts as a symbolic element within the urban ensemble of the southern end of the historic centre of Mainz, where it functions as an eye-catcher and sound absorber.
The museum and the two-storey atrium structure grow skywards from the topographically designed base. The shell of the building forms a transitional space between inside and out. The split levels of the museum are arranged vertically and connected via a continuous circulation space.
The display areas are executed free of columns, which increases flexibility and permits the realisation of a range of exhibition concepts.

The University of Applied Arts Vienna is a forward-looking think tank with an international reputation. The existing ensemble is to be comprehensively reorganised, extended and opened up – to both itself and the wider city.
In reference to the spatial qualities of the ensemble that has developed over many years, the “Vertical Forum” is added as both an open spatial continuum and an element that combines the late nineteenth-century structure of the former arts and crafts school that was built by Heinrich von Ferstel in 1867 with the loft structure that was realised by Karl Schwanzer in the 1960s.
This Vertical Forum acts as a meeting space and interface between the various functional areas and is the communicative heart of the university. It contains the entrée with the refectory, the porter’s lodge and an event space and acts as a vertical connection that takes the form of a generous spiral between the lecture rooms in the basement and the library that hovers high above.
The objective is that visitors enter the university at the heart of things, immersing themselves in the dynamic cosmos of the institution and the atmosphere of “freethinking”, while the vibrancy of the university radiates visibly out into the surrounding city.

The location is shaped by three elements: The topographical situation of a small hill with distant views; the traffic situation; and the central void, a piece of wasteland in heterogeneous surroundings, which consist of urban perimeter blocks, suburban sprawl and the powerful landscape of the expansive network of green spaces.

The functionally pragmatic traffic interchange is enhanced with spatial components that link the roundabout with its surroundings at a large scale. At a programmatic level, the working and living environments of future generations should find a home here and the local residents should be actively involved. We employed the metaphor of “landscape” as a strategy for the development process in which the location merges into the surrounding city. The elevated open space “the hilltop” / the island “the urban hybrid” / the plateau “the urban balcony”: These elements form an “artificial landscape”, a spatial urban DNA for the intervention that helps to create an identity for the future urban development. All the buildings are conceived as hybrids and refer, in their programming, to the surrounding area

The objective of the project was to develop a concept for the WIPARK Garage below the historic square on the Freyung that would improve the visibility of and orientation within the existing garage while also protecting users from the weather.
Our idea was to make the presence of the volume below the square tangible so that visitors would be tempted to take a look below ground. The aim was to give spatial form not to the geometrical figure itself but to the sequence of interconnected spatial volumes, thus combining the “above and below” qualities of the existing entrances to the garage.
A dynamic process enabled us to generate a series of formally related yet completely distinctive objects for each of these garage entrances.
On a theoretical level, we stretched an elastic membrane across the volumes of the garage. We then increased the pressure in these volumes so that this membrane was pushed upwards and outwards adjacent to the three entrances, opening up on the surface like balloons. We then selected a “balloon family” of three of the resulting variants for further development.

The Salzkammergut is a cultural landscape with a long tradition. The guidelines for roof pitches and finishes and for specific materials, with which the local authorities attempt to preserve the identity of the landscape, result in new buildings that copy the so-called traditional style without capturing its deeper qualities and, hence, endanger the ongoing development of this cultural landscape.

The project Haus Feigen, in which an existing ensemble of buildings is both remodelled and extended, addresses this question of how to deal with traditional characteristics. This ensemble is interpreted and enhanced via a series of specific interventions that are derived from typical local residential typologies. We call these elements that are dispersed amongst the existing fabric “satellite buildings”. The use of the traditional untreated larch boarding in the façade, which becomes dark brown or silver grey over time, depending upon its orientation, is part of the material and colour concept.

The remodelling of the foyer of the Museum of Military History in Vienna dramatically enhances the already imposing entrance with its statues of the most famous military commanders. Clear spatial structures are created, which concentrate the different functions of the hall and offer a natural sense of orientation.

The optimal position within the various sections is conveyed by visual axes and lines of movement. The orientation of visitors within the impressive spatial structure is enhanced by the conception of the ticket office and information desk as a symbiosis of old and new and as an extended “island platform” amongst the columns with their statues of the generals. In this way, the military commanders take centre stage, while also becoming part of the action. History emerges as a dialogue partner for the present day. Additionally Zones are created, which are assigned with various functions and atmospherically differentiated by the lighting design.

Towns such as Zirl, which are close to larger cities, are also notable for their monofunctional and isolated residential districts. TnE reacted to this context with a hybrid building concept, which understands the entire site as an open and communicative “building zone” – with a private area above and an underground workshop with an atrium below.
The building structure is derived from the projection of location-specific parameters like the shadows cast onto the site by the neighbouring buildings onto a non-location-specific spatial structure, the so-called Data Field. This results from a formative development process, in which the spatial design of the project emerges step-by-step.
The description ‘detached house’ represents a potential first building phase, a possible form of zoning as the project progresses.
The house offers its inhabitants a spatial structure, which they can discover, occupy and designate functionally according to need. This structure is strongly spatially differentiated. Spatial diversity facilitates flexibility.

The objective is to develop the Innraininsel as a cohesive urban landscape that, like the historic “Anger”, has a range of spatial and visitor qualities and offers a sequence of open spaces that can be interpreted in a great variety of ways. The maximum volumes are modelled three-dimensionally on the basis of the building regulations, the rules governing the distance between objects and the levels of incident light.

The existing, somewhat randomly structured outdoor spaces surrounding the Johanneskirche and the linear block containing the restaurant and pizzeria should be “tidied up” to make the area more penetrable and to increase its qualities as a piece of the public realm. We see the proposed development as offering the potential for a covered public ground floor zone, which can be generously opened when the weather permits and provides not only space for permanent attractors such as catering, street food stalls and the Fab Lab, but also a perfect platform for temporary interventions including flea markets, exhibitions, and events, etc.

Die prominente Lage der Grundstücke, im Grenzbereich zur Kulturlandschaft-Weltkulturerbe Wachau, erfordert eine besondere städtebauliche Gestaltung mit Einbindung der öffentlich genutzten Nachbarbebauungen und Berücksichtigung der topographischen Besonderheit des Stadtgefüges Krems mit der Donau-Flusslandschaft und den Weinbergen. „Das Gründerzentrum“ ist ein Zusammenspiel aus Architektur und Betreiberkultur, das dauerhaft Nutzungsvielfalt generiert. Es ist eine Gebäudetypologie mit zwei Erschließungsebenen, das öffentliche  EG und das halböffentliche Stadtplateau im dritten Obergeschoß, dazwischen ein zweigeschossige Gebäudering als Loftstruktur und darüber mehrgeschossige Solitär-Wohnhäusern. „Das Gründerzentrum“ ist als flexible Raumstruktur  großzügigen Raumhöhen für Arbeiten; Wohnen und Produzieren konzipiert. Der Gebäudeblock fungiert als Durchhaus zwischen zwei Straßen mit öffentlichem Durchgang, Innenhof und Gründerbaum.

A historic villa with a garden and the desire to build a swimming pool that can be used all-year-round.

Where is the site? The combination of two aspects of the building permit, which limited any ‘annexe’ in the garden to just 30m² while permitting 25% of the plot to be occupied below ground, and the fact that the villa had no basement, meant that the earth below the garden was an optional building site.
Based on the notion of a “room for long-distance travel”, the “home pool” becomes an air pocket that swims in the earth, reaching the sunny part of the garden at the edge of the site. A long ramp links the pool with the villa. Glimpses of the outside world from within and vice versa open the underground extension to the sky. The so-called annexe is part of the underground volume, a source of light and a link with the garden. Sunny yellow surfaces, bright blue glowing mosaic tiles and the constantly changing daylight transform the space, which rises to a height of 6m, into a pool that combines the ambience of a living space with views of trees and a distant sky that create a sensation similar to that of floating.