Lighthouses

One member of this advisory board is Ute Schneider, TU professor of urban planning and design and partner at KCAP. As an image, she chooses – where Lorenz sees the “cone” – the needle: because she, too, does not want to see the high-rise left alone in urban space. “At the base of a high-rise, all the infrastructure is concentrated – connections, statics, technology, utilities, which is why it makes sense to position it on a broader base to generate enough volume for uses that attract the public and activate the urban space.

It’s the same in Seestadt: all the new high-rises are built on a base, and that makes sense. High-rises are frequented by many people – sometimes at the same time. They need to get to and from the high-rise. Inside the building, not only people have to be transported between floors, but also goods, electrical and data lines, air, water, and more. All this requires a lot of space. To create an attractive and lively environment in the urban space, especially on the ground floor, you need enough “meat on the bone”: restaurants, shops, and similar amenities that make the location appealing to the public.

In such clusters, the location and orientation of the buildings to each other is essential, because, as Rudolf Scheuvens, professor of local spatial planning and urban development at TU Wien and juror in the Seestadtkrokodil competition, says, “high-rise projects must always take into account increased requirements regarding climatic effects, wind comfort, fire protection, and resource issues – such as materials, energy, and building services.”

Downwinds sliding along facades or wind tunnels between high-rises reduce the quality of stay. Shade can be useful in summer but counterproductive in winter. All this was optimized in Seestadt using computer simulations, as Robert Grüneis explains. There are also aesthetic qualities, says Ute Schneider: “If you look at the high-rise cluster in the City of London, it’s reminiscent of Mont Blanc – you just can’t see through it anymore.” A skyline should be permeable, both for air flows and sightlines. High-rise clusters should be created in central locations with excellent public transport and should be highly visible. Sightlines into the depths of the city, to the sky, or to an attractive landscape behind should definitely be preserved.

The vertical neighborhood. Since around the 2000s, urban development has been moving away from monothematic neighborhoods where people only work, live, or produce. Today, the goal is again to create diverse, vibrant neighborhoods where uses blend and complement each other. This also applies to a high-rise, which Scheuvens aptly calls a “vertical neighborhood”: “The ground floor zone must be seen as an extension of public spaces and programmed and designed accordingly. Equally important is the usage concept for the entire building, which can also be interpreted as a vertically organized neighborhood. In a high-rise, you can live and work, and there is space for cultural and social amenities and facilities.” Regina Freimüller-Söllinger, whose firm Freimüller Söllinger Architektur ZT took second place in the Pier 05 competition, can only agree: “The high-rise must contribute to the neighborhood on a social, infrastructural, and energy level. Semi-public and public base uses and integration with open spaces are very important to me, as they ensure a lively neighborhood.” In terms of land sealing, the three new projects benefit from the building form itself, as Freimüller-Söllinger explains: “Structurally, the high-rise is the perfect example of vertical urban densification.” Stacking is space-saving – and once again, the 15-minute city comes to mind.