Ofis Arhitekti from Slovenia won the first prize (location: Graz) of the Austrian EUROPAN 6 competition 2001.

‘EUROPAN’s objective is to assist the young architects of Europe in developing their ideas and disseminating them on strategic sites proposed by municipalities or developers. The general topic of EUROPAN 6 was finding new ways of introducing landscape into housing. The site was an empty corn field in the periphery of Graz. The brief was to develop work+live units for families that would be occupied only in the working days. Our proposal is not a master plan but more a mode of urban organisation that would through phases of its development offer new social and spatial dynamics. The units are based on the typology and size of the typical plot of an Austrian house combining two floor house, garden and garage.’

Potential for new ways of life and forms of urbanity on the border of Graz presented by Ofis architects. The architects describe their unusual project as follows: ‘The empty side and the position in the relation  to the city centre offer possibility for new ways  of inhabitation. The strategic location along the main access to the city centre and the forgotten  green periphery fields are already today facing  different lifestyles. The nomad city workers driving to their homes on the periphery, the waste former fields and countryside landscapes abandoned storage buildings and barracks. New city developments in the neighbourhood open up questions of new types of inhabitation. A proposal is not a master plan but more a mode of urban organisation that would through phases of its development offer new social and spatial dynamics. It is based on the typology of the typical Austrian plot of the family house that combines garden, garage and housing. Our plots are combined into clusters of two, four or six and they share different typologies of public programmes. Shops, common office spaces, garage, park, children playground and courtyards. The clusters are organised in spirals, green mounts that cover program boxes. They are generated by: 1. Mixed Programme that is adapted to different populations, different lifestyles and users. As the opposition to zoning the plan proposes a hybrid organisation of everything, mixtures of landscape, working and residential units and services. Each urban unit is a mixture of public and private programs but yet each differentiates in the percentage of privacy it offers. For example mounts by the road offer public landscapes and are filled mainly by offices and public programs. The less exposed mounts are private with residential units and gardens. 2. Urban landscape or living park The proposal offers a rich mixture of landscape and build environment. Private gardens, common parks, bio-farms, breakfast terraces, shopping plazas, children playgrounds, mini golf field or rose courtyards embrace units of working and living. The both activities are linked and/or disconnected by common landscapes. 3. Blurred boundaries: Work + live environments New lifestyles and new ways of working generated specially with web – possibilities generate changes in the relationships. Dot.com companies, home working, problems of everyday work-migrations open questions of new ways of working. The proposal blurs boundaries between work and live environment. The mixture of programs allow residents to work at home but as a part of larger working environment generated by neighbour home-workers. Shared facilities such as copy shops, rental meeting spaces, cafes, libraries, common administration and similar produce creative working environment similar to the traditional city office buildings. 4. New typologies: flexibility The prototype is not generated and transformed as a typological model but as a series of social and engineering operations. The spatial organisation is a result of the research of two relationships: build environment versus landscape and public versus private characters. Each prototype – mound is a combination of both. But each prototype differentiates in the degree of landscape or privacy. In the relation to its position to the site some mounts are more public with commercial program offices and shared landscapes or others more intimate, introverted with residential units and private gardens and patios. The differences are possible on the same urban pattern and therefore the plan can adapt different investors, visions and changes in the future. 5. Sustainable architecture (green factor) The build units of housing and working are curved into mounts of earth facing out with one glazed surface. The residential units face the sun with glazed surfaces enclosing conservatories and winter gardens. The working spaces and artist studio face northern disperse light. The half-trenched houses with glazed openings towards the sun work on the solar principles by using natural energy sources such as natural light, heath and energy. The living environment is economic, pleasant and Eco-friendly. 7. Economy: division into small plots The urban pattern is constructed by a simple grid of infrastructures. The pedestrian and bicycle routes, car access and parking possibilities that are based on simple rules of walking distances and intervention routes. Further the site is divided into smaller plots that allow different investors to collaborate in the development. Either by developing small plots with few build units or groups of plots. The division also allows phase development. 6. Phase development Each mount is a closed entity in terms of programs it contains. It is a combination of landscape, residential units, public programme, service and parking and can work on its own, independent from other mounts. Or in different combination with others. The non-masterplan organisation that is constructed mainly by the rules of infrastructures and plot division allows the organisation to adapt any programmatic or social changes that would appear in the future. The programs and the position of the programs is not fixed, the size of the units and character of landscape is adaptable to any future brief or demands of investors.’ More pictures: www.ofis-a.si