magdas

The industrial kitchen in Vienna’s 23rd district which was integrally designed by ATP Vienna for magdas Social Business, a subsidiary of Caritas in the Archdiocese of Vienna, is ATP’s most unconventional industrial building. Every week it will produce up to 25,000 portions of food for people in need of care as well as children in schools and kindergartens. Following its success in a competition, ATP was commissioned by the client to create an operational facility that could also act as a model in terms of both energy efficiency and socio-cultural commitment.

Gourmet-standard of energy efficiency
In line with its holistic recycling and upcycling concept the building contains large amounts of demolished and waste materials as well as reused timber. A particular highlight is the reuse of the air extracted from the industrial kitchen and, especially, the cooling plant to heat the office and staff areas on the upper floor. A photovoltaic plant on the roof provides the additional electricity required by the production facility. This unconventional solution was progressively developed during the course of the entire integrated design process by ATP Vienna in cooperation with the sustainability experts of ATP sustain and the “materialnomaden”. This cooperation paid off because the industrial kitchen was awarded 961 out of 1,000 possible points during the ÖGNB sustainability certification process, which is the highest total achieved to date by a completed industrial building in Austria.

Socially engaged architecture – an affair of the heart
In addition to its award-winning constructional and industrial sustainability the symbolic socio-cultural character of magdas is particularly central to its integrated design concept. As both a workplace and a place for coming together, magdas new industrial kitchen was designed in line with the very latest standards for visual, acoustic, and thermal comfort. Examples of this include the e-charging stations for employees, the orchard planted all around the building, and the urban gardening project created from recycled timber that can be used by both employees and guests.

“During the entire duration of the project it was extremely enriching to have found in Caritas a client who shares ATP’s great interest in and strong awareness of sustainability-related subjects. As an integrated team this spurred us on in our creative work as we sought to demonstrate, once again, that the better world of tomorrow needs excellent buildings,” reports Lead Project Manager Florian Schaller, describing the excellent cooperation with Caritas.