The Vienna House project is proving that affordable housing can be highly livable, near zero-carbon, and cost-effective to both build and operate. But it is also part of a multi-year sustainable-building collaboration between two cities on opposite sides of the world.
Back in 2018, officials from the City of Vancouver and the City of Vienna, Austria, signed a Memorandum of Cooperation. The one-page document committed the cities to share information on net-zero emissions buildings, including prefabrication practices, energy-efficient technologies such as heat pumps, and so on.
Such joint statements are often largely symbolic; big cities sign them all the time, and they don’t usually amount to much. But that’s not what happened with this one.
Instead, it started in motion an unique collaboration on materials and practices for developing highly energy efficient affordable housing. And as a result, while there is a Vienna House mass-timber project rising in Vancouver, a companion affordable housing community is also under construction in Vienna.
Though the European counterpart to Vienna House is informally known between the two project teams as Vancouver House, its formal name is Waldrebe—the Austrian-German word for the flowering vine clematis. It’s located on the east side of Vienna, in a residential neighbourhood near parks, a lake, shops, and transit—very much like its Canadian equivalent.
And though there are differences between the buildings, as noted below, despite the 8,500 kilometers that separate them, both the Canadian and Austrian project teams are working towards the same goal: To provide comfortable, attractive, sustainable, and affordable homes to those who need them most.
Two Cities, Two Projects, One Goal
| Vienna House | Waldrebe (aka “Vancouver House”) | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Vancouver, Canada 49°15’05″N 123°03’52″W | Vienna, Austria 48°13’32″N 16°27’44″E |
| Gross floor area | 13,039 square metres (140,334 square feet) | 10,400 square metres (111,945 square feet) |
| Total homes | 123 | 108 |
| Composition | 56 family units, in a mix of shelter, low-income, and average market rents. Ten per cent of the homes will also be accessible for those with disabilities. All the units will be adaptable. | A mix of sizes, including 15 apartments for assisted living, and 11 for single parents. A kindergarten is also located on the ground floor |
| Structural components | Concrete foundation with prefabricated off-site manufactured light-wood-frame walls and cross-laminated-timber floors. | Hybrid of reinforced concrete core with cross-laminated-timber ceiling elements, external wall as timber frame construction and internal load transfer by means of timber supports and timber joists. All selected from a “menu” of options—a system called OBSYS. |
| Height, in storeys | 7 | 4-5 |
| Signature feature | A central open courtyard will support cross-ventilation through all units and lessen noise from the adjacent rapid transit line. It will also serve as a communal gathering space. | A portion of the parking garage can be adapted for future non-vehicle uses, such as a recording studio, gym, or skatepark. The project will also offer three retail storefronts for lease. |
| Rapid transit proximity | Nine-minute walk to Nanaimo SkyTrain rapid transit station, offering direct service to Downtown Vancouver. | Seven-minute walk to Hardeggasse U-bahn (subway) station, 10 minutes walk to the Erzherzog-Karl-Straße train stop, and 14 minutes to the underground station Aspernstraße (U2). All offer direct service to central Vienna. |
| Mechanicals systems | Air-source heat pumps provide central hot water; in-unit electric baseboard heaters provide heat. Cooling via energy recovery ventilation, external shading, and cross-ventilation. | Groundwater heat pumps provide heat and hot water; a rooftop 90 kW peak photovoltaic array generates electricity. |
The City of Vienna requires all new buildings to meet a Passive House level of energy performance, so Waldrebe will be exceptionally energy efficient and low-emissions. The City of Vancouver currently requires new buildings to meet a zero-emissions requirement.
Postcards From Europe
Oliver Sterl, the Managing Director of Rüdiger Lainer + Partner—the architecture company behind Waldrebe—is sharing occasional project updates from Austria with the Vancouver-based project team.
The OBSYS timber construction system consists of ceilings made of cross-laminated timber panels, between 16 and 22cm thick, that stretch from the building’s core to its outer walls, Sterl reports. In the middle of the room, they rest on 28 by 32cm wooden beams and 28 by 28cm wooden supports.
Sterl adds that his firm designed Waldrebe’s exterior wall as a timber stud wall. Structural timber components are Austrian spruce, and the facade is vertical, heat-treated spruce slats.
Sterl’s most recent project images are below, and we’ll add to the collection as the building nears completion.
