Group Design Project 2025

A central aspect of the GBS Summer University is the group project work, which participants work on continuously in small groups in the final week and present at the end of the three-week program. This year's project with the title “West Slice Stories: Eco-Social, Carbon-Neutral and Climate-Adaptive Solutions for the area between Felberstraße and Westbahnhof” was led by architect Georg Reinberg (Architekturbüro Reinberg ZT GmbH), Karin Stieldorf (Vienna University of Technology), David Calas ( Studio Calas GbR ) and Marcello Turrini (Architekturbüro Marcello Turrini ZT).

The international group was divided into groups of 7-8 people, with the emphasis on ensuring that all disciplines (architecture, engineering, planning, etc.) were represented by at least one student. The planning area is located next to the Westbahnhof in Vienna’s 15th district, where over 20.000 residents per square kilometre live, making it the most densely populated outer district in the city. The 1.2 km site between Vienna’s railway tracks sits on a biodiverse green slope in a dense urban district making it a sparking debate: the city promotes new housing and redevelopment, while the “Westbahnpark” citizen group pushes to keep it a green, public habitat. The GBS Summer University’s challenge examines how to balance redensification with preserving and activating the area’s ecological and social benefits. In particular, the project asks how much of the existing built‑up components can be repurposed for higher‑density housing, and how the surrounding green corridors can be transformed into accessible public spaces that mitigate the urban heat‑island effect while supporting local biodiversity.

After finalising their designs, the groups presented the results on the final day of the GBS Summer University in the TU Kuppelsaal, alongside a festive catered evening and the certification handover.