Making Greenways: A typological transposition between Vienna and Seoul.
As rivers become frontlines of climate adaptation, the studio Making Greenways asks how urban waterways can be restored from the inside out. Working on the last ten kilometers of Vienna’s channelized Wien River, students developed site-specific proposals that replace concrete embankments with riparian parks, open riverbanks to pedestrian and cycling access, and embed blue-green corridors into the city’s ecological fabric. Seoul’s restored Cheonggyecheon River served as both precedent and field laboratory. A joint workshop with Seoul National University produced intercultural design experiments grounded in photogrammetric survey and LiDAR-based 3D reassembly. The studio treats precision modeling as a design instrument beyond mere visual representation to reimagining flood-resilient, biodiverse, and publicly accessible urban rivers.
The studio is affiliated with the research project CoCoNet within Driving Urban Transitions to a Sustainable Future (DUT).
Dr. Philipp Urech, USI Mendrisio, ETH Zurich
Prof. Dr. Susann Ahn, Prof TUW
