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In the densely built and heavily sealed Austrian capital, the first effects of climate change have long been felt. It is clear that Vienna Design Week is increasingly focusing on sustainable approaches, circular processes and their aesthetics.

by Markus Hieke

In the festival headquarters of Vienna Design Week 2024, the mood was one of new beginnings instead of demolition. This year, it was located in a new building along the Landstraßer Gürtel in Vienna’s 3rd district / Photo: © eSeL.at – Joanna Pianka

Those who know little about Vienna beyond its magnificent sights need only come to Vienna Design Week every year. A trip to the festival is worthwhile to get an impression of the Austrian approach to applied arts and its position between northern, eastern, southern and western European design. The festival has been taking place for 18 years. In 2021, Gabriel Roland will follow in the footsteps of the founders Lilli Hollein, Tulga Beyerle and Thomas Geisler as director, bringing together young designers, arts and crafts, public institutions, national and international positions. With each edition, the team chooses a new focus district and a new centre, which usually involves the temporary use of properties that are about to be demolished or converted. 2024 was different.

Passionswege, Flora Lechner | LOBMEYR © eSeL.at | Joanna Pianka, Vienna Design Week

This year’s main exhibition moved into a building shell that is part of a new urban quarter under construction in Vienna’s third district. Wooden ceiling beams, a solar roof, a wooden façade and generous ribbon windows along the 320-metre-long building herald a resource-conscious project development. The geothermal system that will one day heat the “Docks”, as the project by Viennese architects ARTEC is called, is not visible. Soon, the new building will not only provide a well-connected location for studios, offices, services and restaurants, but will also act as a visual and noise barrier between the busy Landstraßer Gürtel and the neighbourhood, which will soon be home to 4,000 people.

Temporary Use in a Shell

Vienna Design Week has now brought this venue to life in advance. Bare screed floors and off-white walls emphasise the unpretentious character that makes the local Design Week seem less commercial than comparable festivals. In doing so, however, it runs the risk of getting in the way of its ultimate goal, which is to move the industry and, by extension, the masses. Nevertheless, the ten-day event is linked to everyday consumer society, for example through sponsorship partnerships such as with Ikea. Or through cooperation projects such as the one between the traditional company Lobmeyr and the designer Flora Lechner as part of the ‘Passionswege’ format. Lechner designed a sparkling mobile, a dancing interpretation of a crystal chandelier. In Vienna, Lobmeyr stands for both luxury and identity. It also demonstrates a less elitist understanding of design, which makes Vienna Design Week attractive and accessible to an audience beyond the narrow design discourse.

Biofabrique Kantine, gestaltet von Studio DreiSt | Foto: © eSeL.at – Joanna Pianka

From Tunnelling to Bricks

The themes of circularity, resource efficiency and climate responsibility were a recurring theme throughout the week, both at the headquarters and elsewhere in the city. This was evident as soon as you entered the festival headquarters. Viennese design collective Studio dreiSt created the temporary café here, complete with a semicircular counter and tables. Their bases were constructed from loosely stacked bricks, with tiled slabs serving as table tops. DIY-style stools were made from reclaimed wood. The tiles and bricks came from a project that could be seen in more detail in one of the next rooms: in cooperation with Atelier LUMA in Arles, the Vienna Business Agency launched the pilot project Biofabrique Vienna. Students from the Institute of Architecture and Design at the Vienna University of Technology developed methods to use unused local resources as materials for architecture and design. The main raw material for the project was excavated earth from Vienna’s underground lines 2 and 5, which are currently being extended.

„With Biofabrique Vienna, we have launched a new approach to research and development in which the creative sector, industry and science work closely together,” says Elisabeth Noever-Ginthör, who is responsible for the project at the Vienna Business Agency. It is hoped that the results of the experiment will be used in the design of underground stations – were it not for the regulatory hurdles.

Rubbish, Trash or Trashy?

Right next door, Nina Sieverding and Anton Rahlwes (the thing magazine) explored in their exhibition ‘Focus: Trash’. One of the curators’ first realisations is that rubbish has been around for as long as humans have been around. “Archaeology would have a hard time without rubbish: if it weren’t for the rubbish of our ancestors, we would know much less about their way of life today,” say Sieverding and Rahlwes. Another insight: ‘A social consensus, manifested in structures and norms, sometimes even laws, tells us what has to go and what can stay. Sieverding and Rahlwes freed themselves from these norms and presented what is stigmatised as ‘trash’ in the broadest sense, satirised as ‘trashy’, or what – previously rubbish – is given a new value through upcycling or recycling. Of the 30 works on display, three stand out:

Making Throwaway Culture Visible

With ‘Rubbish Glazes’, Hannah Mackaness has developed a range of coloured ceramic glazes using ash from the incineration of certain objects. With her work, the designer reflects on the environmental impact of the use of energy from waste. The ash residues, which are usually disposed of in nature, often contain heavy metals and pollutants. To address this, Mackaness seeks an alternative approach to finding value. Louis Funke also uses waste as a raw material, but without first processing it mechanically or thermally. Rather than hiding his source material, PET bottles, tin cans or pickle jars, he uses them as colourful design elements in his chandelier, challenging our common notion of waste. The ‘Constructive Pulp Board’, a cardboard material made from recycled paper waste and rice glue and reinforced according to the principle of corrugated cardboard, is undoubtedly more utilitarian. It was developed by Heiko Bauer, Ben Matteo Kellner and Lena Rimmel during their studies at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences. They do not hide the origin of the raw material, but use rough fragments to draw attention to the mass consumption of paper products.

Metabolism, Cindy Fondor | Photo: Markus Hieke
Compression Stool, Heiko Bauer | Photo: Markus Hieke
Dorn Dolly, Darja Malesic | Photo: Markus Hieke

Simplification as the Key to the Cycle

As part of the joint exhibition ‘Specular: Emerging Design from Cologne’, Heiko Bauer presented another project: the ‘Compression Stool’, made from a single sheet of metal, a tightly stretched wire rope and a few rivets. With this stool, the designer demonstrates how seemingly effortless it is to create three-dimensional furniture from a thin mono-material. Darja Malesic from Slovenia also favours consistent material reduction with her project ‘Corn Dolly’, which was shown in the ‘Crafting Futures’ exhibition. A rubber sole and a mesh of corn husks are the basic ingredients of her recyclable and repairable shoe – an alternative concept to fast fashion and throwaway culture. In ‘Metabolism’, fashion designer Cindy Fodor explores the potential of bioplastics as a sustainable and aesthetic alternative to synthetic textiles in fashion.

Promoting Climate Resilience

Finally, an experiential project in the city focused on the impacts of climate change, and in particular on the microclimatic potential of Vienna’s courtyards. As part of ‘Klimahöfe’, Future Problems Architecture Studio invited people to take part in guided tours of courtyards in the 17th district, to initiate an exchange between residents and experts, and to raise awareness of unsealing, greening and creative communal use of open spaces.

It is now up to industry, city and property managers and legislators to take action, support and implement ideas – so that sustainable approaches such as these do not remain experimental.

Viennese Klimahöfe by Future Problems Architecture Studio: Coloured flags indicated the annual measured solar radiation at the respective location. / Photo: © eSeL.at – Robert Puteanu

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About the Author

Markus Hieke is a freelance journalist and author specialising in interior/product design and architecture. With a background in communication design, he started writing in 2013 and has since established himself in renowned German and international trade and consumer media. His mission is to make design accessible to a broad audience through portraits, interviews and background reports on protagonists and topics ranging from craftsmanship to circularity, even when they are out of the limelight.


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