“Everything stays, but different.”

A memorable phrase. One which for Viennese architecture firm Smartvoll forms the basis of an approach which recognises the value in what is already there – and sees change as a responsibility.

Headed up by founders Philipp Buxbaum and Christian Kircher, this team doesn’t ask: What do we do with vacant industrial sites, sealed inner courtyards and brownfield land? Instead, they ask: What if we saw this as less of a problem, and more of an invitation to do things differently?

This multi award-winning architecture firm has been working on resource-efficient, circular designs which combine aesthetics with environmental responsibility since 2013. Their focus is on adaptive reuse, on extensions instead of new builds – and on a mindset that sees change as an opportunity. We sat down with Philipp Buxbaum to talk about the courage of not knowing what’s over the horizon, conceiving architecture with more than just people in mind, and why concrete absolutely cannot be the future.

“Everything stays different.” Smartvoll’s claim sounds like equal parts principle and incentive. What does this attitude mean for their day-to-day work, their designs, and how they tackle reuse and change?

Amerigo Vespucci is considered the first Renaissance man because he was allegedly the first person brave enough to admit that he didn’t know what lay beyond the horizon. Such an open admission of uncertainty, driven by curiosity, was unthinkable at the time. “Everything stays different” was a similar mantra around the time we set up shop. Acknowledging that while we can never rely entirely on our knowledge and on established wisdom, it is in fact precisely this constant flux that gives rise to inexhaustible curiosity. Our adaptive reuse projects have since prompted us to rephrase things slightly: “Everything stays, only different.”

Adaptive reuse is inherently less predictable than building from scratch. What roles do unforeseen challenges play in the planning and the construction process?

On reuse projects, the planning process is less linear and predictable than with a new build. A project can be carried out in stages, for example, or parts of it can be reused while another section is still in the design phase, almost like a living organism that is constantly kept alive. This inevitably results in more complex processes and requires creative solutions. Insufficiently complex construction work often produces one-dimensional architecture. In that respect, we see the challenge as a driver of multi-layered, living architecture. In many cases, for example, it no longer makes sense to narrowly define the use of a building ahead of time. With a renovation cycle of, say, once every 20 years, you can comfortably wave chronological planning – defining use, drawing up a tailored spatial concept, preliminary draft etc. – goodbye. Often, this rigid planning process is precisely what pushes buildings to the brink of collapse, because they’re no longer capable of being reused or they weren’t planned with reuse in mind. These days, your planning has to be flexible, more parallel, more guerilla-esque.

When do new builds make sense then?

First thing’s first: preserving buildings is the preferred choice in the vast majority of cases, and most of the time, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Occasionally, however, even we have projects where a new build makes sense. The Autopalast in Salzburg is a good example. While the main building on the street is ideal for reuse, the old barracks in the inner courtyard aren’t suited to consolidation because of their size and condition. So they’re being replaced by a new build. Three things are important to us here: Firstly, we’re building on land that is already sealed, meaning we’re not using any new land. Secondly, the new build has to leave the site in a better condition than when we started. In the case of the Autopalast, that means turning the concrete jungle in the inner courtyard into an oasis of green in the heart of the city. Thirdly, when we do new builds, we do so in service of inner-city consolidation, or maintaining and not expanding settlement boundaries. We have a crystal-clear commitment to inner development over expansion.

“Expansions instead of new builds.” Is there a particular Smartvoll project that exemplifies that attitude?

It’s essentially true of all our projects across the board. The transformations that are sometimes the most beautiful are probably the brownfield sites which we’ve woken from their often decades-long slumber with completely new uses, such as Handelszentrum 16 or the Schokofabrik. When we start work on our projects, we can always look to them as shining examples of expansions. None of these buildings went up in one go. They are structures that have grown over decades, built histories of enterprise. When you think about it, reusing the vacant premises and giving them a new lease of life by expanding them is only logical. We’re conscious in our planning that we maintain or restore versatility so that our buildings can be expanded again in future.

The Urban Wildling project in west Vienna is based on the sustainable consolidation of a brownfield site – what are the greatest challenges?

Urban Wildling is one of our more experimental projects, a speculative design for consolidating urban brownfield sites where nature has already settled in, while conserving soil. So we don’t have either a concrete building site or a developer. The focus for us is the question of how we can preserve biodiversity and at the same time create new living spaces – in other words, walking a tightrope between conservation of existing and intact biodiversity, and inner-city consolidation. Urban Wildling is also a model for navigating the nature–culture split. For us, projects like these act as a training ground for solving complex problems and implementing them aesthetically. The biggest challenge, then, is turning a virtual project into a reality.

Are there limits as to how far wilderness is considered welcome?

It’s a regular topic of discussion at the office whenever the pigeons come back to roost in our inner courtyard. You have to be brutally honest – even we don’t always love it. Ultimately, though, these things can often be negotiated and acceptance is achievable to a certain degree. We need a new understanding of people as being part of an eco-system. In that respect, it’s also a good idea for architecture to shift from a human-centred to a more general approach to planning – we’re planning for every life, not just for people.

You redesigned the Vienna Municipal Works’ Service Treff building. How are you turning corporate culture into a spatial design fit for today’s New Work mindset?

Service Treff is primarily about wellbeing, but it’s also about de-escalation because the people who come there sometimes have quite tangible problems and challenges. That’s why we separated the layout into Arrival, Transfer and Advice zones. The Transfer zone is a proper jungle, and the customers waiting there are calmed in the truest sense of the word by the luscious green. The advisors have a very intense job and change over regularly, a bit like croupiers at a casino. That’s why from the very beginning we felt it was important that the employees feel just as comfortable and relaxed as their customers. To that end, we don’t have a beautiful front office and stripped-down back office. Instead, we have a continuous zone for both customers and employees, with quality design throughout.

Challenges like the immense level of soil sealing and the high volume of resources used call for rapid rethinking. What are the regulatory and legal hurdles you’re facing?

In total, vacant brownfield sites in Austria cover an area roughly the size of Graz. But these buildings can’t be reused for sport, living or even schools because the old-fashioned, mono-structural land allocation categories don’t allow it. These categories are based on the Athens Charter which is nearly 100 years old and separated work from living, spawning logistics and, consequently, lots of traffic. Nowadays, however, urban commerce is largely zero emissions, meaning that living and working in a lively mixed use area is possible again. What you need here are more flexible, chameleon-like land allocation categories which don’t exclude anything, and can instead adapt as needed. That’s the only way for land allocation, and therefore use, to keep pace with the speed of change in social structures. Finally, there’s the matter of an adequate grey energy rating which should be enshrined in regulations. Resources that have already been used need to be weighted accordingly, and preserving them has to deliver clear benefits. At the moment, whether or not you preserve a building makes absolutely no difference to the energy certificate. With the introduction of the taxonomy and the budgets we will be subject to for carbon equivalents, an adequate grey energy rating could massively favour preservation and reuse. Otherwise, new builds will continue to be seen as the simpler solution for a long time.

What learnings can you take from your personal experiences for the next generation of architects?

We feel like the climate crisis has once more gifted us architects, in particular, socially relevant and material opportunities to play an active role, ever since the dawn of modernity over 100 years ago. Getting to oversee and help shape this transformation process is equal parts incredible and meaningful, but it also comes with responsibility. We think these are precisely the fundamental motivations that enable you to enjoy going to work every single day.

What has to change in education so that circular thinking becomes the norm?

We have to accept that the challenges we’re facing require us all to ‘go back to school’. There aren’t many experts out there yet when it comes to circular construction. We feel that higher education is precisely where we need to create an environment for bold experiments which aren’t purely about getting everything right. That will enable us to establish solutions over generations and to drive the transformation forwards. On the other hand, we have a sense that younger generations are hungry for meaningful work because concreting over things your whole life is no longer an option. That’s something that can be built on.