shortlist | Das Haus ist vergangen. Future. Urban. Living. Pattern

Christian Fröhlich | HARDDECOR ARCHITEKTUR, Vienna (AT)

“Das Haus ist vergangen” (“The House is Past”) updates A Pattern Language (1977), Christopher Alexander’s benchmark work of architectural theory, by developing new forms of organising space to accommodate multi-local and shared living. The focus of interest is the development of a (living) syntax (living pattern) in which individual patterns to do with communal living are examined for their current value and are thus adapted to the changes occurring within the period in question, up to 2050. The dialectics between Christopher Alexander’s theory – which remains the most comprehensive approach to developing residential construction further – and the reality of a society which is constantly diversifying is the subject of the project, with aspects such as multi-local living, individualization or migration taken into account. It aims to prove that two diversified current groups of users – multi-local residents and migrants – have similar residential needs, practice a similar “sharing of functions” and therefore can share residential space without fundamentally changing their habits. What this requires is the willingness of the residents to accept a new relationship between “having and sharing” and the application of the “Future. Urban. Living. Pattern“. The transformation takes place visually through photographs, sketches, diagrams or texts. Alexander’s theory thus becomes a puzzle playing with contemporariness, including currently relevant cross-references from history.