Wimmer Medien Business Centre and Urban Development

ATELIER THOMAS PUCHER has won the third prize in the international invited competition for Wimmer Medien Business Centre and Urban Development in Linz.  The project comprises of 33 600 m2 gross floor area of a mixed use building combined with the new headquarters of the Wimmer Medien. Connecting housing, offices and commercial areas with a huge public space, this project suggests a new central plaza in the city of Linz.

The main concept of this project is the creation of a public space that recovers the mystical feeling of the Italian piazzas, offering flexibility to host the most variety of events and activities, like ice-skating, Christmas market or outdoors cinema. This piazza is also a central point for the social life of the building, providing outdoors spaces for the offices, significant synergies for the commercial area and a feeling of being in the midst of the city.

The main idea of the building is offering flexibility in its functions. Not only by combining apartments, offices and a commercial area within a single complex, but also providing a structure that allows individual units to be easily adapted from offices to apartments or vice-versa, adapting to the future needs of the building and the city. As a plus, the residential areas offer in some cases double height spaces and, in others, roof gardens. In the office area, the striking feature is its central terrace that can be used both as an outdoor extension of the office in summer and also a social area for clients and workers of the different companies installed in the building.  For the commercial areas, installed in direct connection with the central plaza, the design reflects a careful creation of diverse spaces, reminiscent of the lively old town, with the advantage of developing synergies between living, working and shopping. The crucial idea is to reinforce the spirit of urban lifestyle, where living, working and leisure are blended into a major urban area, creating a real regeneration in the heart of the city of Linz.

For the headquarters of the Wimmer Medien, the main company to occupy the building, the program is distributed on three levels and organized around two atriums. The aim is to maximize integration and communication between all parts of the building. The newsroom is symbolically the inner core of the project, once it is the main activity of this company. The result is an impressive space and high quality working areas in the whole complex.