Approaching from the centre of Innsbruck and entering the Zeughaus site through the railway aqueduct, one has the impression of entering a city of its own once again. This effect is reinforced by the viaduct acting as a city wall, which also separates a larger-scale, late nineteenth-century modern urban setting from a former suburb.
The impression of being in another small historic town is shaped by the hierarchy of the surrounding buildings. The Zeughaus thus becomes the “castle” at the centre, paired with the Siebenkapellenkirche. Still legible morphologically, almost as in a typical medieval layout, small-scale residential buildings cluster around these central buildings. The competition site lies within this field of tension and plays a decisive role in the further development and preservation of the qualities of the district.
The proposed project aims to follow this ensemble of historically valuable buildings and to step back the residential surroundings. The building structure can thus save the site from degenerating into a Collage City or an urban design museum of every fashion in town planning.
To the east, the site adjoins a late nineteenth-century suburb with closed building lines. At this point the four-storey freestanding building responds to the existing development.
The freestanding building creates the appropriate spatial framing of the Zeughaus forecourt. Towards the Zeughausgasse–Kapuzinergasse junction, it acts as a further head building of the square-like intersection.
By relocating the existing path into the competition site, a glacis is created to the north in front of the Zeughaus with sufficient distance to experience the historic building spatially. With the removal of the path directly in front of the Zeughaus, we propose islands of activity between the housing development and the Zeughaus that bring this glacis to life.
The number of existing trees is retained and redistributed in line with the proposed allocation of areas across the glacis, the building forecourt and the residential area.
The freestanding building is the urban head and cork of the development. As a townhouse it offers public uses on the ground floor as an important social focal point and interface between the squares. Typologically, the townhouse is an efficient point block offering a friendly residential face to the ensemble in every direction.
The density figures confirm that dense terraced housing can withstand urban density pressure while still retaining the quality of garden cities. A development for stacked terraced houses, “Wohnen Morgen”, developed among others by Ottokar Uhl forty years ago, represents in the further development presented here a small-town urban building typology as a densification of the garden city idea.
A high proportion of gardens and low building heights with little self-generated wind allow an ecological microclimate to develop.
Creating addresses – social networking
Through both building typologies, point block and lane house, the number and distribution of entrances to the flats create good social interaction and neighbourliness while still allowing a high degree of small-scale social and private intimacy.
The Zeughausplatz, the glacis and the new “Siebenkapellenplatz” are connected by a network of small-scale pedestrian lanes that lead through the site and offer a high experiential quality as garden-lane spaces.
All ground-floor flats in the lanes are accessed directly from them. A staircase leads to the upper floor. Provision is made for retrofitting the access with a lift for people with special needs. The upper floor is accessed directly via the flats.
The freestanding building is an efficient multi-unit block accessed via a central atrium.
The chosen access systems of the lane house and the freestanding building allow a highly optimised ratio of gross floor area to net usable area.
The bonus area gained compared with other typologies can be used to establish collective communal spaces such as workshops, care points, a crèche, a mobility hub for cargo bikes, etc.
The lane house can be laid out as a terraced house with individual terraces and sheltered private gardens. A more collective form of living together can also be established, in which the green courtyard is lived as a communal and kitchen garden without fences, as a collective courtyard house, similar to what we know from co-housing groups.
The typological economy is followed by the proposal for a sustainable construction method as solid brick construction with internal mineral thermal insulation, which produces exterior façades free of external insulation systems and a “breathing” indoor climate.
The façade material is lightweight mortar render with inlays of stone or artificial stone.
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