Rooftop garden Integrationshaus Wien St2 from staniposset on Vimeo.
“One of the most deeply civilized human virtues is the art of hospitality. The proper and generous welcoming of a guest or a new neighbor is a measure of the civilized standards of any community.
Refugees arrive on our shores having risked much, sacrificed much, embodying restlessness, courage, hope, and a thirst for a better future in a better world. They are the bridge builders of the next generation, with the cultural, political, and linguistic sensitivities that will ultimately strengthen and deepen the connections from one part of the planet to another.
Do we offer refugees the bare minimum for human survival, or are we planting the seeds for a civilization of the future? The origins of our roof garden project are rooted in the desire to offer each future young world citizen a wide horizon, a place of expansive creativity, a place of cultivation and transformation. And also a place of refuge, of solace, of emotional equilibrium, recovery, and renewal.
Our roof garden is a stage where the community can gather and listen and develop its own voices, a place for self-presentation, confidence, and joyous, inclusive, shared pleasure. With its spectacular views of Vienna, the Danube, and the distant hills, it locates the guests in the heart of a magnificent new landscape.
Using the traditional Japanese garden principle of shakkei, the architecture creates alignments between the viewer on the roof and significant points of the view, linking near and far, past and present, memories and futures. This double vision is the defining reality for all refugees – and their success in negotiating this double vision will enrich the planet.
The roof garden structure suggests new angles, shifting points of view, dynamic relationships – all elements that every human being yearns for after being trapped in the grid and maze of endless bureaucracy. It is also a structure that is visible in the city, and that serves as an emblem of welcome, of hospitality, and of vision for a new civilization.” (Peter Sellars)