Jakob Zöbls „PALIMPSEST“ wins the first prize of this year’s GAD Awards

This project, which was supervised by Andreas Lechner (Institute of Design and Building Typology), focuses on the architectural potential of infrastructural buildings in the border region of the Hohe Tauern National Park. The typologies and uses explored in this study could not be more specific and leave room for interpretation. Their bareness never gives the illusion of a facade. On the one hand they embody the Vanitas motif and on the other hand the transformative, imaginary potential for the future. The "City of God" photo series shown here was produced with a research grant from the Hohe Tauern National Park. The pictures are allegories.

The focal point of the project is a mining ruin located at Hoher Sonnblick and its repurposing shows how an isolated typology can fragmentedly be further developed. In terms of process protection, the aim is not a conserving, reconstructive state, but rather a self-regulating and transformative one. The design presented here complements the Sonnblick Observatory and includes rooms for the National Park. A new central piece connects the two areas. The aim is to abolish the machine ideology by using the means of the machine. Against function, against speed, against geographical arbitrariness—for the space, for the process, for the place.

The jury statement and more details about the project can be accessed via the website of the GAD Awards 20.