Orient Occident

A restaurant built in the historic market “Naschmarkt” in the center of Vienna. The Naschmarkt, consisting of many market stands and restaurants, not only offers goods for local residents but is also a famous touristc attraction in Vienna.

All buildings in Naschmarkt must be made of wood and obliged to follow the design code controlled by the heritage council of Vienna. The roof types, spans, facade layout and the dimensions of visible structural elements are defined in this code.

“The design theme of our building was to develop a single-bay wood structure without any bearing wall in order to realise an open and bright inner space. Since bracing on the facade is not admitted, we have applied a “2-directional semi-rigid joint system” to the top and bottom of wooden columns, being inspired by Japanese traditional building systems. All the pieces were accurately prepared by machining centers to realise a short lead-time.

The traditional column section in Naschmarkt, 16cm/16cm, is not always enough effective to bear present-day building loads increased due to modern installations and the change of building safety code. For this reason, another recent buildings in Naschmarkt were realised with the shortest permissible span or with many walls. Different from these solutions, our building is the first example of pure skeleton system respecting the heritage conservation code. This building is appreciated as a contemporary interpretation of traditional wooden building arts.”

(Yoshiaki Amino)