Light, air, and green views all around define the ambience of the apartment estate in Gallgasse in Vienna’s 13th district. On a park-like site, an ensemble of existing older buildings, last refurbished in the 1980s, was transformed into modern living spaces. What made the task so special was to preserve as much of the existing buildings as possible while accommodating modern-day apartment plans within the given heterogeneous structure.

This resulted in four lively volumes with monochrome white skins of different-grain texture, which house 46 high-quality condos. Most apartments could be given double orientation in the replanning, some were made through-apartments so as to create open spaces with good daylighting. Additional lighting could be achieved by resizing the window areas and building in new floor-to-ceiling French windows that bring the surrounding lush verdure to the interior.

At the same time, the apartments also extend to the green vegetation outside: aside from the park for community use, with old trees and a large terrace with a pergola, an outdoor kitchen and a little children’s playground, each apartment has its own outdoor spaces in the form of private gardens with terraces or generous balconies looking out on old and rare trees like ginkgo and yew.

Project data:

Planning: AllesWirdGut ZT GmbH

Client: WVG Bauträger GesmbH, Vienna

Completion: December 2014

GFA: 6,570 m²

Project team: Martin Brandt, Alexander Mayer, Jan Schröder, Christof Braun, Diogo Cruz, Nadine Tschinke, Gui Silva da Rosa, Jessica Wannhoff, Juliane Ullmann

Building physics/Fire protection: Dipl. Ing. Erich Röhrer,

Structural analysis: KS Ingenieure

Building engineering: BPS Engineering

Landscape design: Carla Lo

Photos: © AllesWirdGut / Guilherme Silva Da Rosa