‘Die Auenweide’ is an ecological co-housing project 30 km outside of Vienna. It is an alternatively financed affordable and natural living space, where 46 adults and their kids are living sustainable lifestyles and encourage rethinking.
Extensive common areas such as a co-working space, a guest apartment and the community house enable togetherness through everyday encounters. The houses are built as sustainable timber construction, insulated with straw. The interiors are plastered with clay.
Local
Austria
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It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-06-01
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): einszueins architektur ZT GmbH Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Markus Last name of representative: Zilker Gender: Male Nationality: Austria Function: executive Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Krakauerstraße 19/2 Town: Vienna Postal code: 1020 Country: Austria Direct Tel:+43 1 9619351 E-mail:markus.zilker@einszueins.at Website:https://www.einszueins.at/
The co-housing project ‘Die Auenweide’ is an alternatively financed ("wealth pool"), affordable and natural living space in Lower Austria. Located 30 km distance outside of Vienna, the residents are living sustainable lifestyles and encourage rethinking.
Broad common areas such as a co-working space, a guest apartment and the community house are providing the opportunity of togetherness due to everyday encounters.
A total of 25 apartments from 35 to 115 sqm are located in eight houses, surrounding a green heart of the property and offering space for individuality. Edges and niches of the buildings external shape are providing not only protected places, but also reflect the variety of unique dwellers living in it.
Ecological construction, usage of alternative energy sources and preservation of natural habitats stand for careful and responsible handling of nature. The low-energy houses are constructed in a resource-saving prefabricated wooden frame construction, that is insulated with straw and recycled jute. Finally, the internal finish of the exterior walls was done by the dwellers themselves – plastering it with the natural material clay.
participation
innovative funding
timber construction
straw
sustainability
As the trend of scattering single-family-houses across Austria’s rural areas turned out to lead to severe ecological, social, economic and cultural disadvantages, there is urgent need for alternatives. Together with einszueins architektur a handful of engaged people went for that aim and built their vision.
Already early in the planning process the group of self-organized future dwellers decided, to realize the project without a professional property developer – giving themself the chance to take decisions on their own and at the same time being responsible for them.
From the beginning on, the project was characterized by the group’s holistic mindset concerning sustainability-issues: Ecological aspects like reducing the carbon footprint by using natural, healthy and recyclable materials like timber, straw and clay haven’t been seen as nice-to-haves, but considered as fundamental parameters. Even at the point, when plastering the walls with clay turned out to be just too expensive, the future dwellers refused substituting the clay through a cheaper, but less ecological material. The idea of doing the labor-intensive work with their own hands came up. And so, they did.
Finally, also the model of financing the project was done in an innovative and sustainable way: The majority of the budget is financed by a so called “wealth pool”, which gives everyone the chance to finance a sustainable project, instead of bringing one’s savings to the bank.
Altogether the link between the idea of sustainability and the values of mindfulness, responsibility and living in a community makes the idea of living a sustainable life real and visible in ‘Die Auenweide’ – connecting the words beautiful, sustainable and together inseparably.
Starting from big themes like the project’s general layout, up to detailed design-questions: In a participative process architects and dwellers worked together to find solutions, that match to the project’s spirit.
The package of arranging building parts in a human scale, roofing the higher elements with the traditional image of pitched roofs and using timber as façade material makes the architecture of the project more tangible for dwellers and neighbours. Finding the right scale for multi-family dwellings is one of the keys for a bigger acceptance of a denser building development in a rural surrounding of single-family houses.
Starting at this big picture of an entire project, and finally going into details like developing a catalogue of window formats, and positioning the openings together with the dwellers in individual workshops, or defining the different colours of the window reveals on an individual basis, are fundamental ingredients of a participative process, that respects the individual demands as well as the community.
Talking about aesthetics, the main approach was to define the appropriate scope of individual action contributing to the bigger picture of an entire project. This picture represents a group of unique people, that is much more than the pure sum of all parts.
Putting the aesthetics of the project into a nutshell: The built ensemble ‘Die Auenweide’ is as beautiful, as the group of people living in it.
In the process of building up the group of dwellers (starting with a handful engaged people) a social mix was considered. Today the group consists of young families, singles, retired persons, patchwork families, single parents and couples.
The aim of this natural mixing is not only to represent a cross section of a modern society. It is also fulfilling social needs of people in different constellations and enables synergies in daily life. In social aspects this kind of co-living can take a big part in terms of retirement provision to its people, preventing from isolation of elderly as well as single persons.
The social mix of people is also reflected in the design of appartements, reaching from a single’s 35 sqm appartement, up to 115 sqm combination of housing and working or a family of six.
Although the floor level had to be located at least 1 m above the ground level for reasons of flood protection, appartements in three out of eight houses and community spaces could be designed accessible for all: They are built on a connecting basement, that contains an underground garage and is accessible by a ramp.
Neither the entire plot, nor the privately used gardens are fenced or separated by other physical barriers. A big part of the open spaces – especially the centre – is used as common space by the whole community.
The entire project was developed in a participatory process.
In 2018 a founder group of ten people worked out the vision of developing a sustainable co-housing project in St. Andrä-Wördern, 30 km outside of Vienna and connected properly by public transport. They defined five key words: wild, magical, homey, multi-layered and organic.
In a participative process of 4 years, the group developed the project together with the architects of einszueins architektur ZT GmbH, who are specialized on co-housing projects and participatory planning. Within those years the group of dwellers has grown from ten to 46 adults and their children.
Decision making within the participatory planning process was based on a wide range of methods as part of different co-creative formats in different scales: reaching from workshops with the project’s entire group of future dwellers, up to individual meetings for designing each appartement, including windows and balconies.
Organized according to the principles of sociocracy, the majority of decisions and solutions was discussed and developed by a semi-autonomous circle including 6-10 group members following the principle of sociocratic consent.
Additional to this group, the variety of decisions taken within this process reaches from the overall layout of the plot, ecological and sustainability issues as well as construction materials and design-workshops for the community house, up to individual decisions like selecting tiles, flooring and sanitary items.
From the first idea of the project on, there was intense contact between the group of founders and the architects. It was the starting point of the participatory process and the group of founders was already taking part on the fundamental decision of the overall layout of the plot.
As the decision to use natural building materials was made at the beginning of the planning, an Austrian timber construction company was consulted at an early stage of drafting. The basic foundation for an affordable and ecological construction method could be formed already in this early co-creative drafting process, where architects, users, project control, constructer and structural engineer worked together.
Even in terms of funding, the group of future dwellers was choosing an innovative path of collaboration: A grand part of the budget was provided by normal people, putting their money into the project’s “wealth pool”.
Finally, the collaborative approach has led to numerous added values in the phase of planning and constructing. But neither the approach, nor its benefit have ended with the completion of the buildings. When the 46 adults and their kids have moved in, they started to live their dream of collective housing in community.
In participatory planning, established workflows sometimes have to be rethought. As each appartement was planned individually together with the user, the collaboration with the structural engineer is a good example for redesigning a process. To keep the construction cost-efficient, it was aimed to use standardized dimensions of beams, slabs and columns instead of adding one special solution next to the other.
To hit this target, the structural engineer was asked to work out a rulebook, defining parameters like the maximum bearing distance between columns or possible positions and combinations of different sized windows at an early stage of planning. As a timber construction was planned, this task turned out to be anything but easy, yet possible. Finally, this rulebook – defining policies very clear, and at the same time giving as much flexibility as possible – enabled the architects to design each apartment in details like columns, stairs, windows and balconies together with the future dwellers, without putting unrealistic promises in view or leaving the path of cost efficiency.
A new kind of togetherness and the collective action of taking responsibility make ‘Die Auenweide’ exceptional.
The completed buildings are the result of a group of people working together on their joint vision. But that is not the end of the story. At the same time those buildings provide the built framework for further development of this process, including the dwellers living their sustainable lifestyles and encouraging to rethink our daily actions.
Furthermore, realizing affordable housing solutions out of natural building materials by financing it with the innovative funding of a “wealth pool” proofs, that a responsible and sustainable development in the scale of housing projects is possible.
And it shows, how regaining a sense of belonging can be a question of taking responsibility.
Beside from the participatory process and building for a self-organized group of people without professional building developer, there are two very innovative aspects of the project:
It is funded by the innovative method of a “wealth pool” (in German: “Vermögenspool”). As an alternative financing concept, the wealth pool is allowing normal people to provide money for the realization of the project (and getting it back later). Basically, this tool brings together people, who want to realize innovative projects and have creative ideas but not the financial means needed – and others, having money and preferring to fund sustainable projects rather than investing it on the financial market. It is independent from the banking system and since the money is invested in a building, its value is also assured and it can be taken out of the pool again.
And second, realizing a Housing project in this scale out of natural materials (timber, straw insulation and clay plaster) in a cost-efficient way is far from self-evident.
Altogether the project is demonstrating, that there are sustainable alternatives to rural single-family houses and climate-damaging materials, that can be taken seriously.
‘Die Auenweide’ is an ecological co-housing project, planned within a participatory process.
The dwellers are a self-organized group of engaged people. Organized according to the principles of sociocracy, the majority of decisions and solutions was discussed and developed by a semi-autonomous circle including 6-10 group members following the principle of sociocratic consent.
Additional to this group, the variety of decisions taken within this process reaches from the overall layout of the plot, ecological and sustainability issues as well as construction materials and design-workshops for the community house, up to individual decisions like selecting tiles, flooring and sanitary items.
Establishing a community-based project of this scale without professional project developer is neither common, nor easy. It comes hand in hand with the increasing risk of conflicts in the project team. Quarterly held preventive supervision meetings with a professional mediator helped the architects, project control and representatives of the group of future dwellers, to identify and solve emerging conflicts at an early stage.
Financing housing projects with a “wealth pool” is an innovative funding method, that is community-based and will enable also other motivated groups, to realize sustainable and innovative projects in future.
Talking about financial issues, there should also be mentioned, that the appartements are not owned on an individual basis. The entire project is owned by the whole group of dwellers, organized in an association. Having a collective ownership of the whole project, brings a number of advantages.
On an organizational level, sociocracy is definitively the means of choice for participatory planning of co-housing projects. As there was no building developer involved, two group members of the association were employed part time for organizational issues. In terms of communication and time management this turned out to be a good investment.
Even if there are still steps to go in terms of certification, fire protection and cost-efficiency, the usage of ecological materials like timber, straw and clay should be adapted to projects with a bigger scale.
A group of people, working together for their shared visions, and even plastering their walls with clay themselves, points out the potential of togetherness and joint identity. It can lead to innovative solutions and target global challenges on a local scale.
Within the building industry, the respectful handling with resources and ecological choice of material and construction methods will be one of the key challenges within the next decades. ‘Die Auenweide’ has proven that this is possible in an affordable scale.
The innovative funding tool of the “wealth pool” shows, that there are local and sustainable alternatives to the banking world and the system of real estate speculation. The value of the money in the pool is assured by the value of the building.
The new kind of togetherness also brings a social aspect of local action into focus: The possibility of regaining a sense of belonging and having a local identity, without shutting off from the outside world and fearing innovations, novelties or being different. It is an empowering process, that strengths social communities. And due to the experience of self-efficacy, it has a positive impact on the wellbeing of the involved people.
