HISTORY AND BRIEF

Our client contacted us with the vision to transform the outdated, empty part of a farm in the Mühlviertel region into a coworking space for rural areas. The aim was to create a networking opportunity for individual and small businesses that would generate synergies and joint growth - a development opportunity for entrepreneurs in rural areas that would keep the created value in the region and prevent migration to the city.

The central themes in everyday working life - concentration, networking and communication - thus become the task of architecture and call for appropriate implementation. These requirements served as the basis for the design of the new premises. The combination of a modern working environment and existing, traditional elements such as clinker brickwork and natural stone walls presented us with an appealing formal challenge.

CONCEPT

The new requirements for the existing building are implemented in a self-confident gesture: a steel structure spans a rhombus that mirrors the hipped roof downwards, turning it into a space-forming sculpture and becoming the adaptive infrastructural backbone of the building. The rooms enclosed by the rhombus are lit at the ends by skylights that connect the structure itself to the roof. On the ground floor, this shape results in diverse spatial situations, with the resulting different room heights supporting the corresponding new uses and creating a high spatial quality.

IMPLEMENTATION

The rhombus is interrupted once in the former courtyard passageway, which has been redesigned as the new entrance situation. A staircase draws users to the upper floor - to the interior of the new volume - as well as to adjacent, communally used rooms on the ground floor. This insertion allows the large meeting room to be used for two purposes - combined with the entrance area and a small kitchen for events or external meetings as well as for internally organized meetings.

Following a detailed analysis of the existing building, identity-forming existing elements are retained and transformed into attractive, individual spatial solutions by combining them with new materials: In the north-facing meeting room for example, a wide, mid-high concrete wall is placed in front of the original layered brickwork, which serves as a seating area in the room in addition to static and thermal functions. The open office structure responds to changing uses with flexible workstation sizes and arrangements. The outdoor areas take advantage of the added value of the location in a rural area - the experience of nature and of a working environment come together in symbiosis.