If one compares the initial position of the individual cities participating in the Urban Catalyst project, one can see that Vienna, in contrast to Berlin, for example, does not have �endless� areas of inner city wasteland. The large-scale free spaces in Vienna (Nordbahnhof, St. Marx, Erdberger Mais Gründe, Südbahnhof, Aspang, Donaucity) are already in their starting boxes for the race towards implementation, or at least that is the impression that is given.
For this reason it must be stated that in Vienna �free space� first has to be created, or alternatively the vacant premises have to be made more accessible. Nevertheless or even as a result we have found numerous temporary activities in Vienna.
With these experiences, it became highly important to mediate and inform people about the potential of temporary utilisation:
Since then UC-Vienna propagated a mobile network node, which works like a planning tool that promotes potential networks and encourages the formation of networks through the accumulation of examples. Before it moves on, it leaves behind it a programme in the form of an urban catalyst.
The subsequent procedure was subsumed in the working title �CITY CAT� and the approach was modified as follows:
The whole city became test area, with the intention to develop a prototype, in order to:
- find potential vacant premises
- network those involved- provide impulses for new planning areas
- demonstrate the potential of the temporary
In the first place this prototype had to learn new things through activity and institutionalise individual steps.
The institutionalisation of �CityCat� is a tool tailor-made for Vienna, which supports temporary utilisation and integrates the potential in the urban planning process.
The following steps were undertaken:
A: E-mail survey
B: Perusal of adverts in the newspapers of the preceding year
C: Interviews
D: Making the research project public
Further, it was a matter of showing how, by means of urban planning alternatives, cities can develop not on the basis of supply and demand, but rather can create a supply via the demand. The demand itself is called into question. The urban planner enquires, offers, encourages and supports.
Symposium Tempo..rar
As a tool we developed the programme of �CityCat� into a symposium which elaborates the potential of selected vacant buildings and makes recommendations for the concrete development of buildings, as well as for planning areas located in the neighbourhood. Focus was on sites with temporary availability and on temporary activities in general.
The program of tempo..rar was to temporarily play on a site with the aim to hallucinate (imagine) a program for the site and its surroundings.
Sites:
APA-Hochhaus 8th floor, 19th district
Former mail distribution centre, 15th district
Restaurant E-Station at the south railway station, 10th district
Fluc � shop premise for events, 2nd district
The main problem we had to deal with while organising the symposium was to fix the original chosen sites; two of them we eventually had to substitute by other ones. The attempt, to gain temporary access was documented and created an empirical value about temporary utilisation in Vienna.
Program examples of projects already realised in other European cities and in Vienna as well as ideas and inspirations gathered throughout the symposium were the basic ingredients. How can the development of programs be supported and what is understood as a program, on which principal a building or a whole area in a city can be developed? Questions were asked about the consequences of temporary activities for urban life and about connections between programming of usage, site and urban planning.
The event acted as an active collector; the objective was to find out about seemingly distant ideas, concepts, initiatives, needs, experiences as well as formulating demands. The symposium brought together stakeholders and theorists from different fields. It viewed itself as a working circle, was open to the public and focused on discussion and networking.
The contributions (impulse / discussion) will be published in the form of a small handbook on the subject of the temporary in the city, put together after the symposium. In the end of June, within the scope of a project week to the Architekturzentrum Wien we will present the results of our research and the documentation of our symposium.