After successful completion of the course, students are able to understand and comprehend a settlement structure both on a typological and on a social level. Through an intensive examination of the “Dreiersiedlung” in Ternitz, students become even more aware of the importance of variability that should take place in a city. The experiences and results gained from the project can serve as a template for an innovative approach to the historical heritage of workers' settlements in Ternitz and beyond.
"Common Space Ternitz" takes place in a research project in a workers' settlement in the former ‘steel town’ of Ternitz.
The thought of a city is currently mostly associated with the idea of growth. At the same time, however, there are former industrial cities that have been in decline for decades because of structural change. In shrinking cities, however, there is great potential for spatial transformation, which offers the opportunity to rethink the city.
As part of a three-week Design-Build-Summer-School, wooden prototypes for collective impulse uses are planned, built, and ceremonially put into operation. A workshop will be set up on site. Interested residents are involved to join and reinterpret the inventory according to their needs. Based on inputs, excursions, and a workshop, we explore and evaluate in advance what is important for the location. Whether those are exchange shelves, grandstands, community gardens or something else: the results of the summer school are joint installations in empty apartments or in open spaces, which become social meeting points and places of self-government.
Further information on the research and development project: https://www.dreiersiedlung.at/
Thematic research and analysis on location and based on best-practice-examples, working together as a group. Exchange thoughts about the topic during courses and field trips, as well as a summer school as an intensive phase. The actual planning and construction of timber prototypes in Ternitz.
