EAST END

The city of Vienna is currently facing the opportunities and risks of a rapidly growing metropolitan area. The demand for affordable housing is very high, the individual traffic approaches a problematic size as well as the need for high – quality open spaces is increasing. Moreover, regional issues need to be discussed within the urban context.

We live in a society that is driven by growth and the pursuit of profit maximization. An increasing division between rich and poor, privileged and adapted is constantly going on. The loss of empathy in densely populated areas is delving deeper into the behaviour of society’s participants due to densification of human habitats. At the same time, less public space is available. As a result, short-term mobility leading out of the city is increasing.\nSocial conflicts are mostly carried out on marginalized groups. Rural depopulation and urban sprawl have been established terms for decades, yet the further urbanization of our cities is praised as success. Although aftereffects are now clearly perceptible, so is the supposed growth - which is nothing more than transfer of people and prosperity. As long as war and misery have no immediate effect on us, we won’t be willing to acknowledge the processes. It mostly starts and ends with humans who have forgotten how to act considerately.\nHaving all of this in mind I began to design my thesis - hoping to develop possible urban scenarios that relate to these problems. I owe my interest in urbanism to my curiosity and the privilege having experienced a lot of traveling. During my first attempts I was challenged by the topic of Urbanism, which held seemingly insoluble problems, but soon I was able to develop new working methods. Even today, the terms “diversity” and “complexity” remain the most exciting aspects in urbanism to me. I believe that successful urban planning requires a lot of attention and sensitivity in order to deliver a high quality compromise for numerous interests. And that is exactly what I want my thesis to provide. A lot of attention is paid to details and fragments that form an overall picture in the end.