Location：Graz, Austria; | ;View Map

Project Year：2022

Category：Apartments

Big is beautiful’ residential and commercial building in Graz

The acute housing shortage is increasingly being countered by inner-city redensification. This also involves building on plots of land that are exposed to traffic noise. The ‘Big is beautiful’ project in Graz by Stoiser Wallmüller Architekten shows that this is also possible on a large scale without compromising on architectural quality and high living comfort. The name says it all. In addition, the urban space has been reorganised and social interaction in the neighbourhood has been strengthened.

Reorganisation of the urban space

In order to strengthen the identity of the neighbourhood, Stoiser Wallmüller Architects designed a striking urban building block that reorganises the urban space. The new four-storey building extends over a length of 375 metres along Reininghausstrasse and Handelsstrasse and creates an exciting contrast to its surroundings with its building volume alone, which clearly exceeds the scale of the neighbouring buildings. Nevertheless, the building does not appear to be a foreign body. On the one hand, this is achieved by a bend in the building, which takes up the curved course of Reininghausstrasse and thus visually bisects the façade. On the other hand, the building height reacts dynamically to the existing building and thus continues the urban structure of the Gründerzeit. High points at relevant locations such as junctions set urban accents.

The partially subsidised rental flats in the central and southern sections of the building are accessible via central arcades inside the building. These are interrupted by the open communal areas, which bring plenty of daylight into the building. Generous skylights do the rest to make the access zones bright and friendly. 

In addition, all flats have private open spaces in the form of gardens, balconies or loggias. According to architect Michael Stoiser, these have become an increasingly important part of living, not least due to the coronavirus pandemic - both in private and semi-public areas.

Private soundproofed loggias 

In order to make these important individual open spaces attractive in the flats facing the street, the loggias in front of the bedrooms and living rooms were fitted with movable balcony glazing. The Proline T sliding and rotating system from Solarlux, mounted on the existing balustrades, was chosen due to its ability to ‘slide the entire element away and achieve maximum opening’, says Stoiser. 

The glass construction elements improve the prescribed sound insulation requirement for the room closure behind them by an average of 40 dB - depending on the position in the building - by a further 22 dB. A design with a push-on seal was chosen for this. A total of 49 units, approx. 3.90 m wide and 1.40 m high, each with five folding elements, were used. These can be opened inwards and ‘parked’ in front of the walls as narrow glass packages.  ‘A project-specific installation variant was chosen so that the glass elements appear as little as possible from the outside’, Michael Stoiser continues, “and harmonise with the façade appearance”. The solution was approx. 4 m long, horizontal moulded tubes per loggia. These were connected to the parapets and the sliding-turning elements were placed on top.

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