The houses of the settlement pilot lane in Vienna

View of Suewesten of the three lines of Herzog& de Meuron

The settlement pilot lane in Vienna is a community project of Herzog & de Meuron, Steidle + partners and Adolf Krischanitz, and consists of approximately 200 terraced houses on a flat area in the east of Vienna. The contribution of Herzog & de Meuron is situated in the west of the area and covers two whole lines, as well as a line to three fifth.
 

Layout plan of the settlement with the houses of Herzog& de Meuron in the western section (dark)

It was looked up with the design for a possible simple form, which should underline the flat expansion of the area the house lines is convex curved, in order to give to the settlement a center, without giving it however too much weight.

If one approaches the ensemble from western direction, one encounters first an even line, which locks the settlement toward the west. This line forms one approximately 250 meters for a long time, economically arranged front of 22 house units, in summary in three blocks to five houses, which are flanked at the ends of a block with three or four houses. In this opinion the line unites over the narrow gaps away to a only one elongated solidium.
 

The first line seen from the west, the Rhythmmus of the line is difficult to detect. In the upper picture one detects the narrow gap

Into the dark Kransgesimszone under the roof three windows are let in, two little high slots before the passage and a higher before the bedroom in regular arrangement for each house, within whose area the dark lining continued to pull downward.

First the rule order seeks to understand the eye trained at the terraced house settlements of intermediate wartime, in order to then detect in a next step the superordinate rhythm of the line. That does not succeed here however so easily. No orthogonales liniensystem does not assign the items each other, the front order informs easily readable about the vertical and horizontal organization in the house inside. The front gebaerdet itself rather as independent, continuous board, into which the openings are cut as holes in regular arrangement. The openings of the entry doors give a first reference point, look one more exactly, then one detects that the right edge of the lining of the bedroom window drawn downward must mark the separation between the houses.
 

By the added bodies developed inner court on the rear side of the first series

If one enters the interior of the settlement on the rear side of this first series, this becomes that straight line, at which the voltage of the swung second line up-loads itself. If the outside front presented itself closed front as wall detention, in the back by those the line body added low body a certain dissolution is achieved. A simple of additive principle regulates the relationship of large with small body, from window with window, from house to house. If the items are on the exterior in an exciting stress ratio, then here in the back a calming occurs, mediated by the jambischen clock of before-stepping and back-yielding, of planarly closed to open portions.
 

Picture above: View between the first and second series from the south Picture left: View of the north between the first two series

If the western even line was created as open, potentially endless series, then the second line is calm at their two corners. This type of house appears there completed also at the southern end to the third line, by the type taken off on supports from the soil. It is comparatively narrow and can like that strongest bending moment, like it at the line end is given, best take up or printouts. Differently as in the west front of the first line the house units are separate more clearly from each other and than such recognizably in the west fronts of the second line. Probably the outside staircase directs at the house center, but only at the Tuere, which out-moved however by a just as high window item extended and as a whole seen from the center of the front. If one looks in a next step for a vertical line between upper and ground floor, then one finds these as actual axle center of middle window, door and outside staircase. Here the initial assumption receives its acknowledgement: The front is reflected, with the square window on and the small narrow window on the other page the symmetry is however broken at a recognizable axle center.
 

To the west oriented rear side of the second series

House inputs of the second series (eastern side)

Fourth and the fifth type of house inside second and the third line only differ (like already the houses of the first line) in the house width, which are smaller in the line center more largely, against the line end. This decision is to read also here as a representation of the optical function of the forces, which cause the strongest expansion in the line center. The windows in the upper floor line up in the strict Rhytmus under the roof along and push also here to the auskragende roof slab.

As last to call remains the type at the southern end of the third line, which in the change with the other lines of the settlement over the internal delimitation precedence and its primadonnenhafte singularity than ground floorless house on supports state also with brittle Grazie. Homogeneous lining up - as Gleichheitsprinzipin of the culture of the settlement social and economic requirement as order argument also concerning town construction - is here laid out for a certain structural span as homogeneity, homogeneity as kompositorische bracket, as strictly added syntax, which makes an uncontrolled expansion impossible for that variety in the arbitrary a priori.
 

Type of edge of the third series

In a first design de & Meuron for the fronts a two-colored vertical streifenmuster had designated Herzog. This first design shows the windows into strip geometry written, is it that these take whole geometry of the Sreifens, or that they are fastened at a vertical line.
 

Original front design with streifenmuster

The arrangement of the fronts with doors and windows was preserved however and with it in the function of the invisible auxiliary lines the idea of the strip order.
 

Opinions and cuts of the first series

Sketches of the first series

Opinions and cuts of the second series

Sketches of the second series

View into the gap of the houses

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