ThinkArchitecture - Youth Club

Youth club GOeD Vienna 1997
cl: zt-büro di feridoun edalati

situated in the basement of a 1920s housing project in the centre of vienna, this conversion of a former union assembly hall into a contemporary youth club embarks on creating fluid open spaces that allow a multifunctional use for daytime educational programme as well as for nightly entertainment. given the scenario of a constant desire for an ever changing environment the main design feature is a colour scheme of juxtaposed parallel horizontal and vertical faces in fore- and background colours. further transformed through a flexible lighting system vibrant visual structures are generated, thus displacing material boundaries and establishing new temporary landscapes.

centrepiece of this overlapping of real and virtual spaces is a wall to wall poster print of a model shot in the bar area that brings about the illusion of looking right into the scenery of the main hall. in coexistence with the visual structure of colour and light as described above this social structure is intended to create an encouraging environment yet without any pre-inscriptions of its nature.

this programme of simulated and real visual spaces was essentially initiated during the design process following the staging of a number of different types of scenes within the architectural model. the constant shifting between model and built space regardless of their different scales eventually developed the presence of a scaleless structure and transitory space.