Design Studio Railway Overbuild

As part of the “Railway Overbuild” design project, we are investigating the potential of the spaces above Vienna's railway lines. Depending on their location and design, rail structures can have varying degrees of barrier effects in urban spaces. The use of spaces above railroad lines offers a promising opportunity to reduce this separating effect of infrastructure, to (re)connect urban spaces and at the same time to reuse already sealed areas.

In the first phase of the design, we analyze Viennese examples ranging from small-scale developments such as the Wientalterrassen above the U4, to high-rise projects such as the development of the Wien Mitte station, to megastructures such as the Franz-Josefs-Bahnhof or TownTown. We compare these Viennese examples with developments in other major cities such as Paris, London and New York, where the development of railroad lines and parking facilities has long been a focus of urban development due to the limited availability of space and high land prices.

In the second phase of the design, we use the knowledge gained to create conceptual designs for specific areas of Vienna's rail system that are currently unused or act as barriers in the urban space. This raises the following questions: Which sections of Vienna's rail system are suitable for overbuilding? How can superstructures reduce the barrier effect of the rail routes and also have a connecting effect on their surroundings? What uses can be established above the tracks? Where are the limits of these superstructures?

Through the test designs, we want to explore what tasks the spaces above the tracks can fulfill for the city in the future and what added value they can generate for their immediate surroundings.