Inspiration from Vienna
A summer in Vienna: looking at housing through a designer’s eyes
This summer I spent some time in Vienna, and, as is probably inevitable for someone with a background in design, I found myself looking at the city through the lens of architecture.
What stayed with me most was not the grand palaces or the beautiful historic centre, but something much more everyday: housing.
Vienna has a remarkable history of social housing, and what I found particularly interesting was the way design, community and everyday life seem to come together. Housing isn’t treated simply as somewhere to put people. There is a real sense that the quality of the environment people live in matters.
One of the places I was particularly keen to see was Alterlaa. Designed by architect Harry Glück and built between 1975 and 1986, the development is enormous, but what fascinated me was the idea behind it. The buildings are stepped, creating large terraces and giving residents access to greenery and outdoor space. The development also includes communal facilities and spaces for leisure.
I found myself thinking about how unusual it is to see this level of ambition applied to housing for ordinary people. There is something quite generous about the idea that social housing should not simply provide the minimum, but should offer light, space, greenery, views and places to meet.
That idea took me back to another project I visited — the Vienna Werkbund Estate.
The Werkbund Estate was created between 1929 and 1932 as an experiment in modern living. Around 70 houses were designed by more than 30 architects, including names such as Josef Frank, Adolf Loos, Richard Neutra and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky.
What I loved about it was the variety.
Rather than creating one enormous building in which every home looked the same, the estate brought together different ideas about how people might live. The architects were asked to think about affordability, functionality and making the best possible use of relatively small spaces.
Walking around, I was struck by how contemporary some of these ideas still feel.
There was a real interest in how we live, rather than simply how a building looks. Light, air, storage, movement, flexibility and the relationship between inside and outside were all part of the design conversation.
This is something I recognise from my own background in fashion and product design. Good design isn't only about appearance. It is about understanding how something is going to be used, how it feels in the hand, how it works, and how it fits into someone's everyday life.
Perhaps that is why the Vienna housing projects stayed with me.
They reminded me that thoughtful design doesn't have to be extravagant. Sometimes the most meaningful design decisions are the quiet ones — a window in the right place, a shared garden, a useful piece of storage, a little more light, somewhere to sit, somewhere for children to play.
Vienna's social housing history began in the 1920s, when the city responded to severe overcrowding and poor living conditions with an ambitious programme of municipal housing. The principle was not simply to provide more homes, but to create healthier living conditions, with light, air and space considered essential.
More than a hundred years later, that idea still feels relevant.
For me, visiting Vienna was a reminder that design has the power to shape everyday life in very practical ways. It doesn't always need to shout. Sometimes its success is simply that people feel good living with it.
And perhaps that is what I found most inspiring about Vienna this summer: seeing design not as something separate from everyday life, but as something woven into it.
