This is what we want to achieve.

Our Common Space mission aims to transform our cities into a common resource that serves the empowerment and development of cooperative forms of working and socialising by:

• providing well-equipped shared spaces and infrastructure for activities
• creating flexible, affordable access
• encouraging creative development and wellbeing
• contributing to a resource-efficient way of life
• creating meeting points for social exchange
• leveraging digitization and innovation for broader positive change.

These are the services we offer.

To pursue our goals on a broader level, we offer a number of services that go beyond architectural design. They encompass

• Potential Analyses
• Innovative Programs
• Case Studies
• Co-Creation Processes

Common Spaces are built upon four design and organisational principles:

• high-quality spatial and atmospheric design
• multiple uses
• a community-oriented organisation and administration
• long-term quality control

This ensures their longevity and usability by the community.

These are our tools.

Year: 2022
Project Team: Mark Neuner, Marlene Lötsch, Sabine Schertler, Irina Nalis

Funding: BMKOES Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky project grant 2022-2023

For a download, please follow the link to the PDF.

The Common Space Toolkit aims at the active involvement of diverse stakeholders during the planning phase and in operating and managing the space. With this, we want to ensure the implementation of our Common Space vision even after planning and designing are finished.

With developing the tools, we worked on changing the planning process of our projects to achieve a higher level of participation, ideally resulting in a Co-Creation process.

The Common Space Circular Hub provides extended spaces and infrastructures for urban production, to keep materials in a circulating flow and to act as an incubator for the creative potential of the neighborhood. 

In many cities former industrial sites offer vast vacant spaces, often lacking a good concept for future use, despite having high spatial potential. Instead of selling off the plot to private land developers, a public open, up-dated industrial site could be implemented to generate new creative potentials and to support local urban production. The equipment of the Common Space Circular Hub meets the possibilities and requirements of digital technologies as wells as traditional crafts, offering facilities such as:
Wood workshops
Metal workshops
Electrotechnical workshops
Workshops for synthetic materials
Ceramics workshops
Textile workshops
Repair workshops
Re-use material sales
Recycling center
Community kitchen

The Common Space Neighborhood Market lays out new organizational, technological distributional and educational patterns for current and future farmers, vendors and citizens with an emphasis on the support of local small scale farming and food cooperatives.

The Volkertmarkt is currently the least visited market in Vienna: Many market stalls are vacant, visitors and offer are scarce, vendors are frustrated. However, it is centrally situated in the district, surrounded by many initiatives and is frequently used by neighbors for social gatherings. With the Common Space Neighborhood Market we want to strengthen the social aspects of the market, create a hub for synergies for the local initiatives and extend the market offer. The Neighborhood Market is an open platform, including facilities such as:
Fixed and temporary market stalls
Open market kitchen
Open market office
Multifunctional public market furniture
Flexible outdoor spaces for sports, events and social gatherings
Large seating staircase and a stage
Public roof
Green pergolas and cooling water elements
Youth center

The Common Space Center for New Work provides local facilities for the new requirements in the world of work and opportunities for life-long learning. 

The Sandleitenhof was built during the period famously known as „Red-Vienna“ and is the biggest communal housing project from that time. Today, still more than 4000 inhabitants live at the Sandleitenhof and around 13.500 people are located within a walking distance of ten minutes. Despite the various facilities integrated in the housing project in the 1920’s, today many shops and spaces remain empty. The Neighborhood Center for New Work re-activates the vacant spaces and transforms them into an open platform with facilities such as:
Fix desks and shared working desks
Rooms for workshops and education
Neighborhood Cafe
Spaces for digital fabrication
Amphitheater for Talks and Events

Principal Task: Masterplan, Program, Stakeholder
Cooperation: Wiener Basketballverband, Marlies Stohl (Usus am Wasser), Measury
Commission: Mostlikely Architecture

Team: Mark Neuner, Alexander Fischer, Marlene Lötsch, Irina Nalis

Donauversum generates a new kind of public space for body, mind and soul in a lush natural landscape, closely connected to the river with a great connection to the public transportation network. The Donauversum stands out through its high-quality free public infrastructure, which inspires individual appropriation and spontaneous use. With its inviting, open platforms that are made of robust materials and are accessible throughout the year, the program will be ever-changing through its visitors.

The design strategy was developed in a cooperative process with several community oriented experts. It was executed with the help of our Common Space Toolkit.

Principal Task: Masterplan, Program
Cooperation: Buero de Martin, DnD Landschaftsplanung
Commission: Mostlikely Architecture

Location: Naschmarkt parking lot, Vienna
Team: Mark Neuner, Irina Nalis, Marlene Lötsch, Sabine Schertler

In the scope of the Common Space Research project our team carried out intensive research on markets and how they can function as crucial elements for a new type of city. The main goal of the concept is to create high quality public spaces promoting social encounters – we call it Common Space.

When the competition for the development of the Naschmarkt, a large, paved inner-city area, was launched, we knew our chance had come to implement our concepts.

Nine teams, including us, were chosen to develop a master plan for the space in an elaborate cooperative process. The goal was to preserve the weekly flea-market and at the same time to create a multifunctional green community space.