Planning stages

In 1992, the renowned Austrian urban planner, Prof. Roland Rainer, was commissioned to prepare a comprehensive regional urban planning concept, the master plan for the Linz-Pichling residential district. This master plan provides for a settlement potential of between 5.000 and 6.000 homes together with the entire infrastructure in this area.

In 1994, the City of Linz, together with four of the most important non-profit-making residential construction organisations in Linz confirmed their willingness to finance the planning and development of a model estate of 630 low energy construction homes in the district of Pichling. For the planning of the first 630 homes, the City of Linz succeeded in rousing the enthusiasm and obtaining the assistance of the world-class architects Norman Foster from Great Britain, Richard Rogers from Great Britain, Thomas Herzog from Germany for the project. Together with the famous German energy technology planner Norbert Kaiser, these architects formed a working party under the name of the READ group -- Renewable Energies in Architecture and Design -- whose aim is to promote the breakthrough of low-energy construction methods at the international level. The European Union General Directorate XII for Research and Development subsidised the planning work with a contribution of EURO 600.000.

A further eight non-profit-making constructionorganisations joined in 1995, with the result that the total of 1294 homes are to be built on an area of around 32 hectares.

The City of Linz held an architectural competition in 1996 for the design of more homes. The winner of this competition, the Viennese architect Martin Treberspurg, a solar architecture specialist with experience in public residential construction, is now preparing the plans for the second stage.

In 1997, the City of Linz held a landscape architecture competition. The objective was to find a way of controlling the anticipated high user pressure on the sensitive alluvial forest area along the Traun river and at the same time to develop an attractive concept for the outdoor spaces that would offer high recreational value. The winning project by Atelier Dreiseitl (Germany) was realized. 

In 1998, architecture competitions were held for the public infrastructure buildings. The winners were:
Architect Dipl.-Ing. Helmut Schimek (Austria) for the day nursery
Architect Mag. Arch. Michael Loudon (Austria) for the school center
Architekturbüro Auer + Weber + Partner (Germany) for the infrastructure center

1999 - 2005

The 1294 homes subsidised by the Province of Upper Austria and the entire infrastructure are to be constructed in four stages between 1999 and 2005.