gaupenraub+/- is an established name in architecture and is particularly well known in the media for its social projects for the Vinzenz communities. Ulrike Schartner and Alexander Hagner spoke to Baumeister about human-centered planning and architecture as a process that is not affected by apparent restrictions.
Ulrike Schartner and Alexander Hagner from gaupenraub+/-
Credit: Markus Kubicek
Baumeister: Let’s start by explaining what your name is all about.
Ulrike Schartner: The name gaupenraub comes from the dormer windows that we want to rob and is actually thanks to a building owner. In the late 90s, our first building projects straight after graduating were typically Viennese loft conversions. In our first project, we wanted to remove all the dormer windows and replace them with a spacious solution. She said she couldn’t be robbed of her dormer windows.
But in its broader meaning, it stands for complexity. A dormer window is something added on top. Right from the start, we have been trying to develop more complex solutions instead of creating more surface area, more thermal bridges. We are celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary this year, so we can say that it works well.
Alexander Hagner: At gaupenraub, it was actually clear that we were repelling people who wanted bay windows or Doric columns on their property to a certain extent. It was a signal. We simply couldn’t do anything with our own names and we didn’t want those who work with us to have to identify with us.
B: Who are these others that you work with?
US: It varies, but of course we work a lot with our clients. That sounds a bit strange, but we develop the spatial programs and other things together with those who are already on site, especially in the social projects.
AH: Not enough with clients! More and more, but overall less than we had imagined, including with other players in terms of space production. We would have liked more of that. That’s only just starting to happen. I have the feeling that architects planning things on their own is a thing of the past. It was already important to us back then to work together with others on interdisciplinary projects. This openness should suggest the +/-.
Coexistences
In the beginning, there were structural engineers, then building services engineers and building physicists, and today we are convinced that we also need more and more sociologists if we want to build. After all, if everyone is talking about our environment, architecture is also a part of it. As a professor at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, I work on the effects of the Anthropocene. That should have been over long ago and we should be more aware of the fact that we live in coexistence.
So far, this has primarily referred to marginalized groups. But at the university in particular, we are increasingly realizing that coexistence must actually mean: everything that is alive, especially animals, plants, simply everything that is still given too little consideration in planning. Because architecture simply does too little for them. But architecture must also move away from this human-centeredness. We are seeing this more and more and are also working with our office and at the university to broaden the focus as much as possible.
A giant field
B: How did you get involved in social construction?
AH: We realized relatively early on, about 20 years ago, that we had skills that others could use very urgently. I read in the newspaper about Pastor Pucher, who wanted to set up a village in Vienna that had already existed in Graz for nine years and was working well: the VinziDorf for homeless people. I asked Ulrike if we would like to support it on a voluntary basis, at least for the time being. I then simply got in touch with him and asked if he could use us as an architectural firm. He said he needed everyone and since then we’ve been involved and more than ever, fortunately – and unfortunately fortunately, because it’s a huge field and it’s getting bigger and bigger.
Unfortunately, the work is still precarious when it comes to social projects, i.e. projects for people outside the majority society. There is an attitude that we should invest less in such things and that they should be happy that they are getting something. But that’s not exactly how it works and that’s why so many social projects work so badly, because even in architectural production, the focus is not on the people you’re doing something for, but on the lack, such as the lack of money or land.
The concrete stigma comes from hastening.
With architecture, if it’s halfway OK, we’re talking about ten, fifteen, thirty years of existence, and if it’s good, over 100, 200 years. If we make mistakes, then we cement the stigma, this situation of disadvantage, so to speak, for a long time. We saw it differently right from the start in the sense of: When it comes to people with difficult biographies, people on the run, people with disabilities or restrictions or who are homeless, we have to do more because we first have to compensate for an existing deficit. I believe that we have a special reputation because of this approach and our ideas, which we have been able to implement again and again over the course of 25 years.
We have radically broken with the image that social projects smell funny, look funny, feel poor and are somehow not sexy. Such projects in particular need points of contact for support so that people who are disadvantaged can get their feet back on the ground in society. We can use architecture to build bridges between areas where there is a lot and those where there is nothing. The more beautiful we design the architecture, the better the projects are set up on the hardware side, the easier it is to get support from a wide range of areas; from the construction industry, but also from private individuals.
We can use the beauty of the design to build slides so that more goes where it is urgently needed. I think you can also tell that our work is a huge pleasure for us. But at the same time, we always maneuver ourselves into a very precarious position to a certain extent, because although it is rewarded incredibly well, it is only in the form of idealistic appreciation and not in terms of fees. And it’s difficult to survive with that.
It doesn't always have to be a temporary solution
US: The EU has the noble goal of virtually ending homelessness by 2030. However, it is heading in the opposite direction. Due to the climate crisis, wars and the like, there will be more and more homeless people who have to leave their homes for completely different reasons and who will very likely also come to Europe. That’s why architecture needs to work more in this field. The issue will also reach completely different groups of people, no longer just those who have perhaps lost their jobs or have always been social outcasts, as in the past.
It also affects young people who can no longer find housing because everything has become too expensive. It is no longer just about a small group, but about all social classes. We can’t eliminate this with the resources we have. But in reality, you can’t say that nothing is being done for social housing in Austria or Vienna. A lot is being done.
A place to grow old
We are in favor of a broader range of offers. Of course, there is council housing or Housing First, but the offers are often not so broadly diversified and therefore not suitable for consumers, i.e. people looking for housing, to actually be able to take up these offers. Very specific projects are needed. For example, this VinziDorf, where only alcoholic men who can no longer be integrated into society are taken in. They are given a quiet place to grow old and die.
Normally people say that if you build for disadvantaged groups, then it’s only a temporary solution, because they will pick themselves up, come back into society and then everything will be okay. But we have met so many people for whom this is not just a transitional stage, but where you have to give them the opportunity to stay there. We haven’t actually designed any of our projects for a short period of time. People are allowed to stay as long as they can and want to, which also has to do with a certain autonomy and dignity. Nowhere is there an end date after which we say you have to help yourself.
A rethink is needed
B: Keyword support: Should architects be thought of differentlyas sovereigns, namelynot in this “free market, servicesituation”, but perhaps position them completely differently in society?
US: A difficult question. We mainly build for private associations or NGOs, but a lot of support comes from patrons. There are philanthropists who put their money from family foundations into social projects. Each individual should contribute as much as he or she can. But of course, the state also has to do its part. It’s like a kind of network. I don’t believe that the market economy alone can solve this. It can’t be like in America, where you have to rely on other people who donate a lot of money. But we have to admit that we wouldn’t have been able to realize at least three of our projects if it hadn’t been for this kind of private donation. I see it very differently.
AH: It’s also always about housing. You mentioned post-growth before our conversation. It would make our work so much easier if the issue of housing were removed from the (turbo) capitalist system, in the sense of a basic right to housing. Unfortunately, you can’t sue for this anywhere. Actually, all countries, especially in our area, enforce the right to property more strongly than the right to housing. We can see from cities like Paris or London how things are developing and where we are drifting.
I’m thinking of Victor Papanek and his book Design for the Real World from 1971, which calls for 10% of what you have to be made available to the community. That doesn’t just mean money, but also ideas or skills. We like this idea. We are part of a community and cannot survive without it. Our tax system is also based on this idea. For us, architecture work is a shortcut between this credit and debit. But I agree with Ulrike: the state is just as challenged here, and a rethink is needed.
Redevelopment as a shortage of alternatives
We need more diverse offers. In Vienna and similar cities, for example, we have renovated away all substandard apartments and are super happy about it. But in reality, we have simply reduced the spectrum enormously. This arrival city element, where you come as a student, as a young person, freshly moved away from your parents and looking for an apartment, without money, that almost no longer exists. Nowadays, you can’t find anything to live in except “same old” architecture, only smaller and further out on the outskirts of the city.
Because I used to be prepared to share a toilet in the corridor with a Mrs. Paul, I was able to live in the central district. We are proud of the improvement in housing standards, but in reality it makes it impossible for people arriving here to decide: Would I rather take the toilet in the corridor with Mrs. Paul or move somewhere on the outskirts of the city into a super small apartment?
Lunch or heating?
We want to experiment with ways of living that take account of this increasing individuality in our society. We are all such poor individuals, but as far as the housing market is concerned, there are only similar, small floor plans. For example, there used to be large apartments in central locations, but without central heating. You could decide whether to buy coal at the weekend and heat the oven, or whether to go to a coffee house, take the money and treat yourself to a proper meal.
These choice scenarios no longer exist. Experiments would help against this, but they’re extremely unpopular. “Pilot project” still works, you get the feeling that someone is at the wheel. The state or the city are not the right partners because they operate with taxpayers’ money, and experiments can fail, just like pilot projects. You can’t justify that to the taxpayer. That’s why we worked our way through the first few years with public clients and actually saw them as more of a hindrance to our projects.
"We can certainly fail, but we have to do something."
It is not the case that there are so many people on the streets in Vienna because there are not enough offers. There are simply too few offers tailored to the people. We are convinced that we need a broad spectrum; Housing First is suitable for some people, while others need some kind of group housing project, but these cannot look like building groups because they deal with other structural issues.
The greatest danger with special offers is that they also look special. And that’s where we try to take the needs into account on the one hand and at the same time not stigmatize them by their appearance. At VinziRast-mittendrin*, nobody would think that this is a social project where homeless people and refugees play a major role. It’s a completely normal part of the city.
With our tools, we can set an example in terms of architecture against marginalization, but in our experience this is only possible with partners who can free themselves from guidelines and norms. Then you can say, let’s try something and develop projects for the future. Because as Ulrike has already said: We are becoming more and more human. Walls and fences won’t help. We have to prepare for this, and we believe we can do this in architecture too. This also requires a commitment from those in power. We could certainly fail, but we have to do something.
Defying criticism with buildings
Martina Malyar was the head of the ninth district in Vienna, and when we told her about the project to let students and homeless people live and work together, she immediately understood. She was the first politician in Vienna to say that she found it very interesting and was behind us. Up to that point, when we had already been active for 10 years, we had never experienced that before. The opposite was the case: attempts were made to politically prevent the VinziDorf. VinziRast-mittendrin has now been in existence for eleven years, the VinziDorf for six years in Vienna. Once things are built and become a reality, it is possible to take the wind out of the sails of critics. But unfortunately, this is not yet possible with politics. But of course there are exceptions like Marburg, where we are currently being taught better.
B: What is happening in Marburg right now?
US: The municipality of Marburg in Germany has heard about VinziDorf and wants to replicate it. This is our first public commission to realize such a village. It is a village because it is about people who were excluded from social interaction. In the village, everyone has their own little house and the community in front of their noses, which they can accept, but don’t necessarily have to. Most emergency shelters have dormitories where you have to go in in the evening and leave again in the morning. But not everyone can cope with that. For those who have lived on the streets for a really long time, this is not an alternative. For them, there is this village with a communal house where they can eat together and where there are showers. The community is offered, but not necessarily required. There is no compulsion.
If there has been any criticism of our projects, it is most likely that these rooms are tiny. The idea behind it was better to have a permanent, small place to live than nothing at all. Because with these projects, it’s often “all or nothing”: we have to do everything and then it doesn’t work because this is too big or that is too expensive. Instead, it’s better to find out what the basic needs of the people you’re building for are.
We want to take all clients seriously, regardless of their social status. Often the greatest need is to have a door that you can lock without having to worry about being robbed or even threatened. In other words, this very small, personal, intimate space that nobody is allowed to enter, that you really have to yourself and that provides security. And when this security has really become tangible after a few weeks, then people come out and start socializing again. In the village in Vienna, for example, which has been around since 2018, there are already real communities and people look out for each other. This social inability to get along has turned into togetherness. That’s great to see. That’s exactly what the people of Marburg want and should have.
Light in the project instead of forced happiness
AH: Hillary Silver is an American sociologist who said that it’s not the roof over our heads, but the social structures that support us. We believe in that. And now we’re thinking of marginalized groups, refugees, homeless people, who are always force-fed group projects, apparently due to this need. These people, with their difficult biographies of fleeing, of surviving on the streets, have to be forcibly compatible within these group projects, so to speak. It’squite clear that this doesn’t work, isn’t it?
For example, a project is currently being planned in Munich for 830 homeless people in a building with 3 wings – and is called Overnight Shelter. The costs for this are in the double-digit million range. I don’t want to be security, users or support staff there. I wouldn’t want to be there at all, it’s a dead end. When you go there, you know: Now you’re really on the sand.
Students are ideal contact points
We actually always try to incorporate light into the projects, i.e. the perspective, the light on the horizon. On the one hand, we define our wellbeing in mainstream society through our social relationships, which recharge our batteries. But we humans also define ourselves through the meaningfulness of our lives. We are interested in much more than just living in projects, which is why they are becoming increasingly hybrid. For us, the hybrid is one of the solvents, for example in terms of occupancy. The projects are not just for homeless people, but also for students. They are curious, keen to experiment and want to broaden their horizons. And as a young person, you often simply can’t afford your own apartment.
Students are ideal contact points. But of course they also need the right room program. That’s our big criticism of competitions, where you’re already given that. We prefer to develop it together with the users and clients. That’s a huge lever as to whether the project turns out well or not. For the time I’m in a place, it shouldn’t matter where I come from, where I’m going afterwards, but only whether there are structural settings that make it possible to have a good time together. And occupation plays a major role here, i.e. doing things together.
From group and local sizes
AH: Finally, informal living should also be mentioned. We can learn so much and benefit so much from informal structures that don’t come from architectural planning or are even prescribed by government circles, but that arise of their own accord. Things that arise without regulation should be looked at much more and welcomed in the municipalities.
US: We have found that the right group size for people living together is around 30 people, which is about the size of an old school class. That’s how we were socialized. That’s how we find our way around. We can remember each other’s names. But the group also tolerates it if you only like five of them. There is a certain kind of choice, you can build relationships. A company is also much more likely to tolerate projects if they are spread out in small groups across the whole city. The neighborhood can also get involved and we see a lot of synergies, like in Mayerling, for example. That was an abandoned hotel with a laundry. There is a nursing home in the neighboring village and we thought: we can do the laundry for them as well. There are so many possibilities when you think more locally. We always want to give something back to the neighborhood with our projects. We want there to be a connection between the outside and the inside, without isolation.
Form follows resource
AH: Nobody in the neighborhood likes “homeless projects”. You can plan the most beautiful architecture, but you can’t get it approved if the neighbors send you death threats. So we have developed strategies over time. A society thrives on symbiosis. If a structure is too infested with parasites, it dies. Architecture should also be thought of symbiotically, without a fixed focus on a result, but rather on development, on the processual. In other words, not exactly as we have learned and as it is still taught at many universities, that the beautiful, well-designed object (keyword icons or landmarks) is then finished at some point, a ribbon is cut and you are happy that it looks almost as beautiful as on the renderings. That is no longer the idea of architecture.
When designing with the processual in mind, we realized that this is how we discover so much potential. That’s why our new credo is “form follows resource”. Resource in the sense of gray energy, of course, but also of infrastructure, people, neighbors, animals, plants, in other words, everything that is there. In this respect, we architects actually have to develop into specialists and train the perception of the next generations: Where are we and what is here?
From flea market to identification
AH: We just have so many products and things. We are super rich kids and should see how far we can get with what we already have. For projects, for example, you develop formats such as a flea market, where you inform people, but also get their opinions and suddenly get ideas on how to expand the spatial program.
Residents are local experts, and when they realize that their thoughts are being incorporated into the project, then we have already dealt with the issue of identification. Then the organism is suddenly expanded and not some kind of implant that might be rejected. We also try to get young people involved in the project, schoolchildren, apprentices, students, in other words the younger generations in particular, especially in very difficult projects like the VinziDorf, which is about tangible homelessness.
Designers of living processes
AH: Once we have used architectural planning to give young people a starting point for a project like this and they take part, they will think differently about homelessness, for example, for the rest of their lives. They realize that most of the stigma is prejudice. Of course, it’s also incredibly difficult to work like this and financially incredibly unprofitable. But the projects are then developed, discussed, built and realized together, which means that we are no longer designers of dead matter, but have now become designers of living processes. That’s super gratifying. Nevertheless, we also have to look again at where the next other, i.e. conventional, projects will come from, from which we can then also make a living.
Autonomy
B: Do you need a bit more autonomy? What would make architectural work easier for you and therefore for society?
US: More freedom to work in an environment where you are simply allowed to do certain things. In Germany, there is also this building type E, E for simple building, and we in Austria are also working on it, even if there are a lot of question marks surrounding this topic. For example, this is something we need to take a closer look at.
Race against time
US: In the beginning, we were always forced to build with the existing stock because we couldn’t afford the new. And what we couldn’t afford in the past for social reasons is now also an issue for mainstream society. Only now, due to a global emergency, the focus is on how we need to deal better with what is there; that instead of building regulations, there should be conversion regulations and so on. Something that is already being considered, but where I am a little afraid that it will all take far too long. We are incredibly slow and we are simply running out of time.
We’re at the end of our careers rather than the beginning, and we’ll still be able to finish our work. But I’m really worried about the children and young people who are just starting out. How is this going to continue if we don’t step up a gear now? Everyone says “well, in 15 years we should have solved this”. But I realize that we’ve been talking about it for 5 or 10 years and nothing has really been solved yet. And if it continues at this rate, then I’m really very worried. That’s why I have to bring a little hope back into play. Alex is the optimist with us, just like you, Ramona. You’re young, you’re interested and, fortunately, I have the feeling that there are more and more like-minded people.
"We must have our necks full enough, now."
AH: At the university of applied sciences in Carinthia, I have the feeling that young people are interested in all the topics that could be subsumed under the keyword “building turnaround”. They are slowly realizing that if we carry on like this and continue to use the subjunctive – we should, we ought to – that this is simply not enough. We have to switch to the imperative and exert pressure, especially from below, i.e. from the population of the Global North and our region. We have to have our necks full, now. I find it totally arrogant that we are still carrying on like this, namely towards all those who can’t, indeed: fortunately can’t, because it wouldn’t work out if everyone lived like we do.
Our thinking goes like this: “Oh yes, the room height is 10 centimetres too low, isn’t it? The insulation isn’t OK or the barrier-free access isn’t right, is it? Well, let’s move it and redo it.” We believe that architects are so creative. We have to redirect this creativity to questions like: How far can we get with the things we have? How do we meet the new challenges that we as architects are supposed to solve? We have to use this creativity to identify potential in order to look at something that is disruptive or annoying until it perhaps even becomes something that creates an identity for the entire project. Ulrike always says to tell stories.
How far does my brains reach?
AH: When you walk through Berlin and look at the new buildings there, you immediately shudder. They are virtually nanocoated. They don’t address the users or city dwellers. They are so artificial that we are almost back to artificial intelligence. I miss the human connection with both. On the other hand, I see circular building as a huge opportunity to develop architecture where patina plays a role, where traces play a role, where you simply realize that it’s not out of the retort or copy-paste times 3000. The hopeful thing is that young people are also interested in this.
And if we now move from the subjunctive to the imperative, that will help us enormously. As architects, being part of a group that thinks about the environment, as specialists in the built environment, opens up so much more, it’s so much more exciting! I can only think as far as I can think in this brainpan. As soon as I invite someone else to think with me, it gets further, and if I then get even more involved with a given situation, it gets even further. So we are both Wolf Prix’s students. In order to create serendipity, a happy coincidence, they put a plan or a drawing on the photocopier and moved it during the copying process. Then they saw what came out of it and some of it was simply translated into architecture. This inviting of coincidences or of what I am not myself to leave my own brain allows you to discover so many things.
Return to generalist architectural work
AH: We architects believe that we are more important than ever. But there are even more people involved in our work who urgently need to have an influence on architectural production and development. That’s why we need even more people who have the right training to ensure that all the structural components, which are becoming more and more numerous, can be built into something that will last for a hundred or 500 years. That’s a huge responsibility. You need people who have an overview in terms of training. That again speaks in favor of this generalist, which was said to be dead for a while.
None of us believes that he or she is better than a carpenter or a locksmith. But we still need someone to keep an eye on the big picture and hopefully this work will be reserved for architects. Hopefully we won’t be rationalized away because, well, some building developer will do it, he’ll manage. The solo genius, the architect, so to speak, is practically dead. We see ourselves more as mediators.
*see also Baumeister 1/2014, page 60 to 67
The questions were asked by Ramona Kraxner.