Living in the Biotope

摘要

An exceptional green residential district, known as the Biotope City Wienerberg, has been created on a grey industrial site once occupied by a Coca-Cola Austria filling plant. Even at first glance it is immediately apparent that the 5.4-hectare Biotope City Wienerberg in Vienna's 10th municipal district is greener than other residential districts: there are plants climbing up the facades, plants on the roofs, greenery on the balconies and terraces. A closer look reveals that there is far more here, as the entire site is based on the concept of integrating plants and animals more closely in people's urban environment. It is well known that there are good reasons for this endeavour, for example the impact of climate change and urban heat islands on residents, or the in-creasing loss of biological diversity in cities, which must be counteracted. Urban planner Helga Fassbinder brought the biotope city idea to Vienna and together with the late Harry Glück and numerous other planning partners has pursued it further in Wienerberg. It was already clear when drawing up the mas- ter plan that implementing a concept of this kind in multi-storey housing, would entail taking new paths. To avoid losing sight of the ambitious green goals while implementing the project the basis provided by the master plan was augmented by Studio Vlay, Auböck + Kárász Landscape Architects, who compiled a catalogue of qualities. Essential criteria are defined in this catalogue, which is an urban development contract between the City of Vienna and the developers that makes these criteria binding. The awarding of a gener-al planning contract for outdoor space to Knoll-consult Umweltplanung played an important role in the success of the Wienerberg project, given that the demands made on the landscape architecture design in creating an overall sys-temic eco-cycle in the Biotope City were ex-traordinarily complex. This general planning concept also included interface planning for 14 sites and the creation of a comprehensive rain-water management System throughout the site based on the sponge city principle. The overall green balance of the Biotope City is most impressive: 250 trees, 15,500 m~2 of communal outdoor areas that extend beyond the site, 8900 m~2 of meadow, 930 m~2 of shrubs, 13,600 m~2 of planted rooftops, 2200 m~2 of façade planting, a retention pool measuring 760 m~2 as the basis for the rainwater management System, 2000 m~2 of playgrounds for chil-dren and young people, 600 m~2 of communal gardens, 3850 m~2 of ground floor gardens and, as a Special extra, a communal pool on two of the residential buildings. The experience acquired in implementing the first Austrian Biotope City now provides a valuable basis for other urban districts. Hope-fully, many more of these will be built in the future, based on the sustainable concept. In the area of housing especially we need to make greater use of the positive effects of greenery, which can serve to balance urban density and warming with the aim of main-taining a pleasant quality of life. The Biotope City Wienerberg has certainly shown landscape architecture's great potential for helping to build the city of the future.