Hart bei Graz’ in Austria. A small town on the outskirts of Graz, the second largest city in Austria. European competition 1st Price, 2023.

A few years ago Hart was a farming village until a large corporation bought the village with the land.

Since then, the newly-built houses have fallen from heaven. Buildings with different functions lie somewhere between traffic areas, football fields, and the remaining open space.

The “center” was a roundabout in the approximate middle of the action. Urban planning remained a foreign concept, architecture was cheap fashion and embarrassingly provincial.

We also took the football fields and other remaining green areas together, demolished the roundabout, and integrated the traffic into the meeting areas. A retention basin was defined as a biotope and connected to a stream and the riparian forest in the south using a blue ribbon.

The roundabout became a green city park as a new and actual town center.

The featureless business center became a multifunctional, busy lounge area, with a city balcony and a café as a meeting point for the citizens of the small town. Tree groves & built “follies” as small iconic signs should make the place unmistakable.

Last but not least, the former football fields in the town center are now a residential park with water and green spaces, and finally architecture.

Category:Green Urban Planning and LandscapeYear:2025Location: AustriaArchitects:Volker Giencke Company & Paul Giencke GM013, Graz, AustriaDesign Team:Volker Giencke,Paul Giencke, Petra Friedl, Yihan Fang, Keqi Lu, Yotam and OlshakerClient:City of Hart / Graz, AustriaPhotographers:Courtesy of the Architects