Durch die Hecke
An event hall pushed into the Gürtel's noise, threaded through the hedge that shields it.
Durch die Hecke sits on the Margaretengürtel, in the strip of park running down the middle of Vienna's ring road, where traffic noise on site is regularly above 75 decibels. The brief asked for a public building that could hold its own against that noise rather than hide from it. The result is a long event hall in an exposed steel frame, threaded through a planted hedge that doubles as acoustic buffer and threshold. Inside there is a stepped amphitheatre-style hall, a bar, and an upper level opening onto a public stair that climbs through the structure and out to a rooftop walkway.
