SHORTLISTED

HAPPY ENERGY . TURN ON THE CITY

Team Description: The idea of this project is to bring back balance and happiness. This proposition is structured in seven different strategies: (1) NEW PRODUCTION; (2) REGENERATION, to create economic investment and boost the urban revitalization; (3) NEW ICON, to build a new iconic structure that can increase the real estate speculation; (4) NEW CENTRALITIES, the creation of spaces that organize the city space; (5) HUMANIZATION, to insert new trees in the streets that will make the transition between scales providing comfort; (6) WALK IN NATURE, to create new pedestrian routes that unites the city centre to its natural outskirts, increasing mental and physical health; (7) KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY, based on the circulation of information and knowledge as the model for a sustainable and balanced development.

Jury Statement: “This concept follows a strategy of fortune. It identifies seven problem areas, finds solutions for each of them and combines these solutions with different forms of interaction. […]The jury acclaims the diagrammatic scheme, which finds a way to group realities in a kind of metaphorical sense.”

Team Statement: "Among all E15 sites, it was selected the city of Weiz for the challenges presented, namely the long configuration of the intervention area that follows the Weizbach river, the interaction with the water, the scale of the city, and the programmatic diversity of the site.
The purpose was to create a large-scale urban regeneration strategy. With a ​​strong conceptual idea, our objective was to increase production, the humanization of the urban space (streets scale & riverbanks), the circulation of information and knowledge in order to establish a sustainable economical system, and to promote the creation of new centralities (dispersion on new urban spaces), and the encounter with the natural surroundings.
Five solutions are proposed for specific problems (rehabilitation of the old tannery, street revitalization, road connections, new production knowledge economy, and ecological paths). These proposals aimed to reform and raise significantly the levels of happiness, comfort and well-being in the city of Weiz.“