E2 Bachelor Design Course – SYMBIOTIC PATCHWORK: Structures, Character & Function

The former University of Economics (UZA1) in Vienna represents one of the city’s most ambitious megastructures of the late 20th century. Today, the complex stands at a turning point: too large and rigid to function as intended, yet too significant to ignore. This studio will investigate strategies of architectural transformation through volumetric and structural interventions. Instead of replacing the existing, students will explore how new insertions can coexist with the old, generating a layered and symbiotic patchwork of spaces, programs, and atmospheres.

Design Proposal
The studio does not aim for a total masterplan but for surgical architectural acts that redefine selected portions of the building. Students will propose functional additions that address gaps in program, circulation, and identity.
The focus will be on one of three main zones:
– Atrium – activating and occupying the building’s internal voids
– Roof – transforming the vast horizontal surface into usable, expressive space
– Edge – negotiating the threshold between campus and city
Each intervention will combine structural clarity with spatial imagination, turning the existing building into a host for new forms of collective life.

Design Methodology
– Site & Structural Analysis: mapping existing grids, volumes, flows, and latent potentials
– Volumetric Exploration: abstract massing studies as a tool to test structural and atmospheric possibilities
– Programmatic Integration: grafting functions such as studios, labs, housing, or public spaces into the interventions
– Iterative Development: moving from concept models to detailed architectural definition
– Synthesis: embedding the intervention within the larger narrative of adaptive reuse and urban resilience