Markus Pöll

Stadtquartier Jakominiplatz

Graz 2020



This design for a mixed-use urban neighborhood at Jakominplatz in Graz takes on two contextual challenges: the lively function of a central public transport junction and the task of continuing spatial dialogues with surrounding historical structures. Located just outside one of the city’s former gates,

Jakominiplatz is today one end of the historic center’s main pedestrian zone. The design suggests replacing the site’s oddly positioned buildings, which lack quality and historical value, and infilling the site by drawing on both the nineteenth century Graz townhouse and twentieth century typologies. Incorporating the generous flexibility of nineteenth century floor plans with high-quality open spaces, the design argues for an appropriate urban density that forms an architecturally ambivalent expres- sion. Tectonically and technically concrete, it remains an open, physical source of identity—a façade both in and for the city—building on architecture’s continuing and urgent role that includes large public and collective buildings, places of transition and exchange, and domestic environments. As the ever-increasing pressures of densification have combined with an explosion of both urbanization and tourism—which have resulted in rising real estate prices and lower quality construction—engagement with a long term perspective means strategically re-thinking the metabolism of a sustainable city, which starts with a close reading of the existing city fabric. This reading forms the basis and starting point of this thesis. The design, which articulates a clear formal intention while illustrating numerous possible multi-use forms of living, calls for a focus on working on the city, on researching the con- ditions of urbanity, and on architecture making the city.



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