Monte Laa Central Park
Location Vienna, Austria | Client PORR | Architect Atelier Albert Wimmer | Size 12.2 hectares | Status Completed 2007 | Images: Rupert Steiner, MSP, Landschaftsarchitektur cc by sa 3.0 Tags Parks and Civic Spaces
MSP designed the central park at the heart of the housing project Gartenstadt Laaerberg, creating a strong visual identity for the park and thus the new district.
The park links the business premises, shops, restaurants and school on one side with the residential area on the other. Each of the eight residential buildings facing the park has its own corresponding section of greenspace defined by crossings to the offices, schools, and restaurants on the other side. Although the whole length of the park is public, parents can allow children to play floors below because they can see that they are safe within the well-defined boundaries of their building’s ‘front lawn’.
Because the topography drops almost 12 meters from southeast to northwest, a series of ramps sloping up in the opposite direction mitigate the sense of the grade change.
The ramps vary in length and height, and end with different elements. One ends with oversized amphitheater seating for teenagers to hangout and gossip, for children to climb, and for audiences to gather for neighborhood events or outdoor performances. Another ends with doublewide slides, big enough to encourage group sliding on a busy day. Yet another is strewn with moveable wooden lounge chairs for people to gather in conversation, or for a solo read in the sun.
The most active zone in the park is placed close to the school with an easy connection to the school yard to invite use by the children. There’s a ramp paved in asphalt for skaters and skateboarders, a sandbox, and a children’s play fountain at the end. All of the elements of the park consider the large population of young children in the neighborhood and invite playing, jumping, climbing, sliding, and exploration. There are also plenty of adult places to sit and chat, from painted pink logs, to isolated wooden benches, to a whole plaza full of granite seating blocks.
The design uses elongated sculptural landforms, bands of different materials, and lines of columnar Italian Poplar trees (spaced far enough to allow easy access, while defining the zones) to emphasize the linear quality of the park. Elements are repeated along the length of the park to ensure it feels unified and coherent; it echoes the geometric and formal layout of the Gartenstadt while adding accessible green space for all the residents.
“The idea was quite utopian. How can you create a compact city where there is no separation between all of the different uses like working, living, and leisure? The park was the element that could bring everything together. With the park, we were starting a process of creating community, a process of having these people take on the city as their own. Design is one thing, but as that process is ongoing the park is getting richer and the community is getting stronger.”
Albert Wimmer, Architect
