One day a window of our office in Vienna was smashed in. A protest against the erection of a detention centre in the Styrian village of Vordernberg for people awaiting deportation. Yes, we had erected this controversial building. And we are proud of it – insofar as you can speak of pride in the context of such buildings.
Details
Photography
Hertha Hurnaus
Client
Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft m.b.H.
State
Completed
Net Usable Floor Area
10.040 m²
Building Costs
18,6 Mio. €
Awards
Architekturpreis des Landes Steiermark 2016, Nominierung; ECOLA Award, Nominierung
Making a Change
We would have liked to talk to our critics because we think that progressive architecture must also address the construction of repressive institutions. We think that we also need to confront those questions to which there is no single right answer. Questions such as what humane deportation procedures should be like.

»As architects, we cannot change the law on aliens, but we can change the living conditions of those detained under these laws.«
The Opposite of a Prison
In our opinion, pre-deportation detention centres should no longer be architectural non-places or cheap containers. The people staying there also have a right to live in dignity. People detained while awaiting deportation have not committed a criminal offence – they are merely in the country without papers. Yet especially in Vienna they are still held in dismal 18th- and 19th-century police prisons like criminal offenders, often in unbearable conditions.

Open and Humane
It was our task to make the detainees’ stay in the centre as bearable as possible. We wanted to leave out everything that suggested punishment. We took a very radical stance – within the framework of the existing legislation – and the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft (the company managing Austrian publicly owned real estate) supported our approach. We wanted to build the opposite of a prison: instead of bars, cells and closed units we created 12 open residential groups with a floor area of 6,500 m².
Rooms with a View
The people living here have a view of the mountains and a small river and they can withdraw to common rooms or to small residential courtyards where amelanchier trees blossom. The cells – we call them rooms – look nothing like a prison. The walls are clad with maritime pine – a material that retains its cosy appearance even when damaged. Instead of bars we installed full-height fixed glazing equipped with ventilation flaps that are only ten centimetres wide. The administrative wing functions as a wall but also allows people outside to see into the detention centre.
A More Equal Relationship
However, when planning the 10,000 m² complex we didn’t only have the detainees in mind but also the people who work there and look after them.
The staff should not be sealed off from the detainees, they ought to be in daily contact with them. The people held at the centre are in detention but they also receive counselling and protection. Staff should see them not as mere numbers but as citizens who are guarded before they are sent away into an uncertain future. And this is the letter we wrote to the critics of the project.
Type Of Commission
EU-weit offener Wettbewerb
Client
Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft m.b.H.
Construction
2011–2013
Gross Floor Area
11.060 m²
Scope Of Commission
Generalplanung
Location
Vordernberg, Steiermark
State
Completed
Building Costs
18,6 Mio. €
Design
2010–2012
Net Usable Floor Area
10.040 m²
Team
Marco Bumeder (PL), Monika Liebmann (PL) , Sylvia Urban (PL), Barbara Wagner, Thomas Karl, Ania Korotarz, Lukas Mahlknecht, Laura Scharf, Ulrike Straube, Simon Treml, Marie Vigne, Margitta Wagner, Arnold Wilfing, Christoph Windsperger
Awards
Architekturpreis des Landes Steiermark 2016, Nominierung; ECOLA Award, Nominierung
Structural Engineer
kppk ZT GmbH
Building Physics
kppk ZT GmbH
Building Services
Zentraplan Planungsges.mbH
Lighting Design
Christian Ploderer
Landscape Planning
Rajek Barosch Landschaftsarchitektur
Fire Safety Planning
Norbert Rabl ZT GmbH
Medical Technology
ZT Mader
Signage System
Studiozwei - Agentur für Kommunikationsdesign
Cost Management
Buchegger 7 Baumanagement GmbH
Photography
Hertha Hurnaus