Peter Lorenz

Lorenzateliers, Austria

Peter Lorenz founded his architecture office in Innsbruck in 1980 and opened the Vienna office ten years later. 485 works in 41 years, in the disciplines of urban planning, architecture and interior design. The current highlights in Austria, Slovenia, Germany, and Italy include “BORA Wing Raubling” 2019, “Med Campus Uni Linz” 2021, “School on the market in Vienna” 2020, the “Factory for Young” 2022 in Trieste, “FLAGSHIP BORA Herford” 2022, the “Sportcity Ilirija” 2022 in Ljubljana, as well as a large number of subsidized housing developments in Vienna 2003 – 2019 such as the “Nussbaumallee Wien” 2017.

Lorenz trains the “view from the outside” through his constant travels, teaching activities and lectures at universities in China, India, Italy and Austria. His passionate and constructive criticism applies to the phenomena of nature, the city, architecture, and their connections. The current book “PASSION for SPACE” gives an overview of the diverse topics and activities of LORENZATELIERS ZT GmbH. (photo: Nicole Bernardon)

www.lorenzateliers.at

LORENZATELIERS, with its urban concept, was the unanimously chosen winner for the EU-wide competition for the new buildings of the Faculty of Medicine in Linz. The special appeal of this project lies in the chance to create a part of inner city including the General Hospital and the University.
The campus idea promotes research, exchange and communication. The mixture of teaching and research rooms, offices, library, café, supermarket and shops around an open campus creates a lively, attractive city atmosphere. 1,800 students as well as 250 professors and scientific staff will learn, teach and research in the 12,500 m² building.
The large building volume is combined in four structures around a common square. The four main functions – lecture halls, laboratories, offices and library – will each be accommodated in a building. The division into four separate constructions makes it possible to develop optimal spatial, technical and design solutions for the different functions.
Photos: Martin Steinkellner Architekturfotograf

What to do with the outdated, unpopular office buildings of the 60s / 70s? ´Demolishing and replacing´ is usually the answer.
BORA takes a different approach and announces a competition for the redesign of the facades at the innovative company’s headquarters. Selection criteria are materials, sustainability, sun protection, passive temperature control and feasibility. The unanimous winner is the project by LORENZATELIERS.

The existing reinforced concrete skeleton buildings are being statically upgraded – mostly during ongoing operation – increased in lightweight construction and equipped with a new thermal shell with movable façade elements in the front. In addition to optimum insulation of the existing reinforced concrete structure and the installation of highly insulating windows, the new building shell is designed as an intelligent energy façade and shows the company’s technical and innovative orientation, in which every component fulfils a technical function. In accordance with BORA’s image, an adaptive overall concept was developed using passive structural measures that ensure comfort and minimize energy consumption. The individually controllable ventilation recovers heat via decentralized, room-related façade elements.

The technical appearance of the façade represents the aesthetics of a future-oriented company. An all-glass roof construction with surrounding terrace offers an inspiring place for seminars and meetings for employees and visitors from all over the world. The spacious roof areas on and around the lower building are designed as green relaxation oases for the employees. As a landmark and corporate identity visible from afar, the main building receives a cantilevered flying roof, the Bora wing. Photos: Christian Flatscher

A decade after the independence of Slovenia, several years before its entry into the EU, the new capital city of Ljubljana sponsored in the year 2000, for the first time, an international two-phase architectural competition. The “ILIRIJA Swimming Pool” was planned by architect Stanko Bloudek in 1928. Already then, it was located at the intersection of Bleiweisova cesta and Celovška cesta (Klagenfurter Straße). A few years later the displaced train tracks dissected ILIRIJA and Tivoli Park. Since the early 1990s, Ljubljana has yearned for an indoor swimming centre with its own Olympic sized 50-metre pool and several sports halls. The subject was hotly debated even in the innermost professional circles. The plan of Lorenzateliers won the trust both of city planners and architectural designers. The re-activation of the long forgotten Latterman Avenue as the optimum access to Tivoli Park, a grand rolling knoll across from fortress hill, was seen as its most important aspect, composing the typical topography of Ljubljana. Inspired by an entangled discussion which mistakenly focused on Park vs. Sports Centre, the victorious solution resembled an art project to change the face of the land. The green meadows near the intersection were to be lifted, an intermediate layer generated below them and glassed in, to place the sporting centre there. The new competition swimming pool, sports rooms, fitness centre, eateries, shops, athlete dormitory, conference rooms and Park&Ride underground garage for 1,500 cars. Since then, twenty long years have passed. After countless discussions conducted, resistance coped with, project alterations made, opinions exchanged, the old swimming pool was surprisingly put under historic protection in 2009, which led to a brand-new design. In 2018, the city authorities decided to go ahead with the project. Lorenzateliers re-worked its designs in 2019 to adhere to the new paradigms yet also draw together the reduced background facilities under one large roof of about 15,000 m², thereby gaining the enthusiasm of city planners. The new SPORTCITY ILIRIJA brings together a number of functions which mutually complement each other: the historic building serves as a foyer, making the history of the city visible, a swimming hall with competition pool, warm-up pool and grandstands for about 1,500 spectators; added to that, sauna, offices, locker rooms and several gyms plus a fitness studio for schools, leisure activity and competitive sports. Apart from the functions of a modern reception lobby for the sports complex, the entry building also houses a multi-function room and a café. One part of the square in front of the building will be a café terrace in summertime, increasing the attractiveness of the square yet another notch, making it a popular meeting spot between historic city centre and central Tivoli Park. Bonded to the centre of this square, the historic building plays a leading role, distributing its functions in circular manner yet retaining its external countenance. Most of all, the new design is a kind of ‘Ode to Open Space.’ The now sunken Latterman Avenue leads into Tivoli Park beneath the tracks, passers-by gaze at the sports- and swimming centre whose insides are inextricably linked to the entire stimulating span of spaces and buildings. And the huge roof makes possible an opulent 4000 m² of photovoltaics, generating the grandest showcase feature of all: the project is one of Europe’s very first “zero-energy” buildings, setting new guidelines for the EU, making it the leading specimen of “green architecture city Ljubljana.”