157 The result: aspern Seestadt, which reclaims a brownfield area to create a development that embraces new urban ideals while retaining the classical urban structure of old Vienna. As aspern Seestadt has evolved, it has emerged as one of Europe’s most dynamic planned communities and an incubator for smart city initiatives. GIS technology helps planners implement clean energy and lowemission strategies and aids the long-range planning and implementation to ensure that aspern Seestadt achieves a unique balance of sustainability and livability. A New Life for an Old Airfield In the early 2000s, following a period of stagnation and slow growth, Vienna’s population began to skyrocket. Since then, it has increased by 25 percent. The city is projected to add 200,000 new residents by 2030. As far back as the 1990s, Vienna’s political and civic leaders foresaw the strain population growth would place on the city’s housing stock. Political realities complicated the problem. Vienna is both a city and one of Austria’s nine provinces, surrounded by another, Lower Austria. “It’s just not possible for Vienna to grow on the outside,” said Carina Huber, an urban planner with the development agency Wien 3420 AG, the corporation responsible for overseeing aspern Seestadt’s development. “The only opportunity is to adapt unused areas within the city.” Casting around for land to develop, officials settled on the former site of Aspern Airfield. A major civil and military aviation facility for more than 50 years, Aspern had closed in 1977, just as Vienna was reaching its postwar population low. When construction began in 2007, the site was a derelict former airport. Today, aspern Seestadt is a thriving community spread over 800 acres. When it is completed in 2030, it will be home to more than 25,000 people and 20,000 workplaces. Everything Old (City) Is New Again To begin to understand the scope of aspern Seestadt’s achievement, consider that this former brownfield now contains a swimmable artificial lake at its heart. The lake is its own circular economy. A plant converts the gravel from the lake excavation into road base and aggregate for concrete. To date, 1 million tons of recycled material have been delivered. Keeping the material on site has saved 280,000 truck trips and 6,000 tons of emissions. Aspern Seestadt has made an ambitious commitment to lower its impact on residents and the environment. The aspern climate-fit standard was developed with the goal to meet a greenhouse gas–neutral economy by 2040, with high-efficiency buildings, maximum use of renewable energy sources, e-mobility, and mitigating extreme heat in the summer. This balanced approach permeates the comprehensive plan that governs the project’s development. The plan emphasizes Smart Planning The total embodied CO2e emissions relates building performance from the original efficiency standard as well as a more stringent standard that was developed when building technology improved. Screenshot courtesy of Wien3420.
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