Archetech Issue 35 2018 | Page 79

aFter winning the 2013 architectural competition, construction started in 2015, and the office tower was completed in 2017. The project developers were Wiener Stadtwerke Holding AG, and STC - Swiss Town Consult AG. The tower is a simple large form, yet dynamically curved in the horizontal section with smooth, rounded surfaces. The building’s The ORBI Tower is located in Vienna’s “TownTown” urban development zone on the fringes of the Prater, a local recreation area and the green axis of the Danube Canal. It takes seven minutes to travel from the 115 m high tower to St. Stephen’s Square (Stephansplatz) by urban transport. The airport is just a 12 minute carried away. The tower boasts 21 600 m² of office space for rent on 26 floors. The project provides a tower rising from a trilobate, an orbiform, which together with the existing neighbouring tower forms a gate- like close to the TownTown-Piazza while at the same time also acts as a salient head in the southeast direction. One broadside of the trilobate points towards the Piazza in the direction of the entrance to the underground station thus marking the main access to the building and defining an attractive forecourt. One narrow side is oriented towards the east and acts as a curve to the motorway junction.