By plane or by train, more or less thirty students have already arrived at Aspern Seestadt this morning, we are still waiting for the arrival of some more. They came here as part of an Erasmus Intensive Summer Course, runned by Professor Werner Kvarda from the Boku University.

Caming from 10 diferent countries, we are taking part on “a big laboratory of spacial planning, in a project that we can discuss how we want to live on the future“, as said Professor Werner at the first meeting that we got.

At the site, we could see the flags of Europe Union, Austria and Boku University, as well as we could feel the freezing winds of the almost desert region. “Here it can get’s really hot on sunny days, as well as really could and windy: it is the problem of a empty space“, said Ute, from the Content Associates.

All of us where a little bit curious about the structures that we can see here, and for sure everyone is expecting to get more information about this huge project: built a sustainable city in here. Some structures give us some clues about what we can expect from a permakulture building, as this one from the picture besides, that tries to show how we can built an hydroponic garden, that can cool the inside space and also produce food.

But this is an empty space, but in constant movement. During the last two years this place is receiving different cultural groups as some activities have been made by the Content Associates and other associations, and we are going to talk more about this as soon as we get more informations. Daniel, from the Content Associanets presented some aspects from their work during this period, and he told us that the begining of the occupation of this area was as a container village, and the aim was to bring some artists and the population to start to use this public spaces togheter.

One of this projects was the bicycle-recycling, an important imput for the place, because even thought we can see the metro-line already done, the line will start to run on the next year. For the moment, the visitors can take this recycle bikes from the nearst metro station (for free) and just ride here.

This is the place where we are going to work for 20 days, in a project of re.defining the spacial planning for a new city. The complexity of the issue brought possible solutions apported by different fields; and we are in a really heterodox group: students from spacial planning, solidarity economy and agricultural engeriening, among others, are here to discuss better ways to live in a community-city.

But at this first moment, our attention was on how we are going to live here, for this 20 days. So we got some decisions about how we could organize ourselfs. We formed five groups: one group was responsable to go shopping, as we needed some food and other materials. Other group was responsable for the kitchen, other for the sanitarians and also one for the working space. After a democratic and self-applied positions, we were ready for some sociabilizations.

 

 

 

We got dinner and some wine and beer, in a discontracted moment where we can find commun grounds, experiences and talk a little bit about our different cultures. And now, the tuff decision is to go to sleep; at the same time that we want to stay and share, we are tired of the trip, and also, we have to deal with our new beds: in a a militar style. Anyway, I really thing everyone is expecting the day rise to get more information about what, really, we are going to do here. Tomorow, we got more informations.