notpalast by barbara pitschmann from austria

Accommodation in a Box – The NOTPALAST
Many well-known designers and architects concern(ed) themselves with the issue of mobile living. Most of their projects, however, are visionary and utopian.
The approach of my project is engaged with here and now
- with the real present of the city of Vienna (as example).
For this purpose I dealt with the reality of poverty and its impact on the need of dwelling. In order to make this reality tangible/apprehensible, designing an Accommodation in a Box was/is at stake for me. The result: the „Notpalast“ (“emergency palace”).
The function of the project consists in the fact that a discussion of the real, existing issues of poverty and housing shortage is triggered by an inhabitable case (=Notpalast) that is in the center of interventions in public space on the one side and it is used as a tool to work and survive in the streets (to carry possessions and to collect goods) on the other side.
As an example for such an intervention, emergency camping in the historic parks of Vienna or in the urban jungle has to be mentioned (for example: residing between the Museum of Natural Sciences and the Museum of Art…).
The “emergency palace” is the model of a mobile single person accommodation/working unit adequate for the use in urban space.
The original material is a so-called flightcase (a sturdy carrying case made of multi laminate with aluminum profiles), which I rebuilt (in model) into a dwelling case. The most important requirements for the case are suitability for transport - e.g. inn the subway, easy manoeuvrability, water impermeability, inexpensive manufacturing, and the function as a sleeping space and locker.