Wohnprojekt Wien
Address: Krakauer Str./Ernst-Melchior-Gasse
1020 - Wien
Austria
Contact person:
Email: office@wp-wien.at
Website: wp-wien.at
Date of creation: August 2009/ summer 2013
Type of project:
Legal form: association (verein)
Objectives

The Wohnprojekt Wien is currently the most siginificant lively sign of the Austrian collaborative housing scene. It iwas initiated in 2009 by a small group of activists and is currently expanding to a group of 80 people. In collaboration with a housing association and two teams of architects the project group has won a competition (public housing tender) in April 2010 and is thus be able to realise its idea of collaborative housing until 2013. Finally the project will house about 40 to 45 flats with about 100 inhabitants. Another house of the same size is situated on the same plot but is not part of the collaborative housing project.

Management

The project group has the legal form of a non-profit association (Verein). The decision-making process is following "socio-cratic" priniciples (Sociocray). Thematic working groups work on different topics (i.e. sustainability, PR, community, architecture and asthetics, courtyard and garden, culture), each group delegates two persons in the leading circle. Meetings of the working groups, the leading circle and the whole group of about 80 people are taking place regularly to manage the process of planning, decision making and community building. As the project is still under development management structures are constantly beeing adopted.


The architects are also part of the group moving in and are managing the co-planning of the apartements with the future inhabitants.

The project manager (raum & kommunikation) working for the housing association (Schwarzatal Housing Association) that is the proprietor of the plot and the future house is experienced with participatory housing projects and is strongly supporting the project.

Financing

Due to the Viennese funding reglementations a professional housing developer (bauträger) is in charge of building and financing the project and is granted housing subsidies for this. Until the house is finished the financial risk is thus on the side of the owner. Afterwards the project association will rent the entire building from the owner and rent out the single apartements to its members. Thus the vacancy risk is transferred to the project association. In addition the project association intends to buy the house from the housing association later on.

Besides the public funding each group member has to cofinance the project with approx. 570 €/m² when moving in and will pay a monthly rent of about 9,50€/m². This already includes the rent for all the common spaces and additional activities.


Collaborative dimension of the project

The project is community focused. Each project member needs to contribute 11 hours per month to project activities.

The house has numerous common rooms: sauna, guest rooms, common roof terrace, library, children`s room, big hall with kitchen, workshops and flex rooms, also an intercutural garden with private plots for growing vegetables.

Sustainable dimension of the project

Sustainability is a core goal of the project. Meausures on different levels are currently beeing developed. This goes from a bicycle-friendly environment to (e-)car-sharing-systems, waste-reducing measures, eco-friendly building materials, high energy-efficiency and different measures to reduce the use of drinking water. It also includes the idea of a community that is

Commercial units on the ground floor bring working and housing close together and help develop a lively urban quarter on the grounds of a former trainstation, where about 10.000 housing units are to be build in the next 20 years.

Affordability of the project

Referring to the Vienna housing market newly built subsidised housing is in no case cheap for tenants but affordable for middle class income groups and rather influences market prices on a larger scale. The rent level for this project is slightly above average, mostly because the inhabitants have to finance all the common rooms together with their rent.