All studio uek's projects are linked by an understanding of the sustainable production of space that makes use of existing potential, undertakes focused transformations and in the process opens up differentiated possibilities for everyday use. The implementation of the Europan 9 project for Vienna-Neustadlau, which included the development of an urban planning guideline project as well as carrying out one part of the project, gave studio uek the opportunity to negotiate its idea of space within the context of subsidized housing in Vienna. The project Oase 22 in Vienna results from the 9th Europan competition held in 2007 under the title The Sustainable City and New Public Spaces. The competition entry approaches the role of public space at the periphery using two strategies at different levels of intervention. On the level of the urban quarter the project introduces spatial and temporal correlations of several small scale projects and it calls for cooperation between different actors. The housing project itself reacts to the fragmented character of the periphery: On a spatial level it forms an island which clearly defines an inside. Through participative, process-oriented, and programmatic methods the project encourages a feeling of belonging and community.
In the course of the implementation, the team of studio uek participated in the briefing of the following architectural competition (Bautragerwettbewerb) for the area which allowed them to manifest their overall concepts such as developed in the course of the Europan project. The overall area was then divided into four building sites: On one of the sites the team realized a 171 unit housing project with an integrated adult day care center. Since its completion in spring 2013, the appropriation of the project by its residents is accompanied by a moderation process. In 2014 Oase 22 was nominated for the Hans-Sauer Award Re:Generationen, Re:Generativ - Planning and Building for Resource Conservation and Generational Diversity.
Questions of future proofness occurred at various project stages, scales and constellations of actors and were referred to as sustainability, robustness, resilience, adaptability, flexibility. Some of them where: Urban porosity of the project: implementation of urban functions within the housing project, interventions in the surrounding urban space, dealing with plot boundary and public space, dealing with the ground floor area; resident structure: integration of residents in varying phases of life in the project (building section 1: sheltered/barrier-free housing and geriatric day centre, building section 2: experimental dwelling forms, building section 3: young, urban dwelling with offer of sport activities) - living together, growing and aging within the project;Moderation process: participative activation process to support community building and appropriation by the residents - potentials and limits; dealing with common rooms - programmed or open to diverse usages; structural adaptability: paired apartments with "predetermined breaking points", possibility for re-use of the ground floor area by increased ceiling height - potentials and limits.
