Austria’s Aspern Seestadt Community Recovers, Reuses, Rebuilds
- Robert R. Selle
- Jun 17
- 6 min read
Lakeside ‘City-Within-a-City’ Offers Residents Eco-friendly Lifestyle
Imagine a city where daily errands are a delightful stroll or a quick bike ride away, where lush green spaces are abundant, and where the air is noticeably fresher and cleaner. This isn’t a distant utopia; it’s the lived reality in Aspern Seestadt, also known as Aspern Lakeside City.
This visionary northeast Vienna development, with a large man-made lake at its center, is being built on the site of Vienna’s long-disused first airport and is even repurposing a huge mass of materials from the old airfield in its construction. The city-within-a-city—which boasts a broad mix of multi-story apartment buildings, condo blocks, towers and street-level shops—aims to provide residents with an enjoyable urban lifestyle while prioritizing convenience, community, and environmental responsibility.
Here, amenities are thoughtfully integrated, ensuring a high quality of life for residents. Seestadt dwellers can reach nearly 80% of essential destinations within 15 minutes on foot, by bicycle, or via efficient public transportation. The design drastically reduces reliance on private vehicles, cutting down on urban emissions and congestion. Residents enjoy easy access to medical facilities, post offices, grocery stores, and educational institutions, including a university campus.
Beyond the practical, Aspern Seestadt, spanning 660 acres and under development since 2007, boasts a diverse range of recreational amenities, fostering a strong sense of community and well-being. The residential buildings are arranged to provide spacious public courtyards where individuals and families can gather, relax, talk, and play together.
The district is one of Europe’s largest urban development areas and is expected to house 25,000 residents and provide over 20,000 jobs and training positions by 2030.
‘Rebuild, Reuse, Repurpose’ Trend
The growing Vienna quarter is not only a test bed for new architectural, energy-saving, and community-building approaches, it is a pioneering district that embodies the principles of circular construction and urban mining.
When Seestadt development began, the two airport runways were still intact. But, using the principles of urban mining, the airfield concrete was recycled onsite and used as construction material for roads and pathways, according to Peter Hinterkörner, head of planning and quality management for the district’s construction. Even some 600,000 tons of material from excavating the lake and building plots were not transported away but instead stored within the district and reused as construction material and terrain modeling.
For example, Hinterkörner said in an email interview with The Earth & I, “the first local recreation area—the Aspern Terraces—was formed using the lake excavation material. Altogether, this mass management has saved around 7.5 million truck-kilometers and avoided approximately 8,400 tons of CO₂ emissions, as of fall 2024.”
The worldwide building sector is responsible for about 40% of global CO2 emissions and at least a third of the world’s waste material.
The worldwide building industry’s environmental impact generally flies under the radar of popular consciousness. Yet, the sector is responsible for about 40% of global CO2 emissions and at least a third of the waste material generated in the EU. As cities everywhere grapple with the consequences of climate change, nature-minded urban planners and architects are rethinking construction methods and city design.
“The building sector represents 40% of Europe’s energy demand, 80% of it from fossil fuels,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme. The UN agency predicts raw resource use will double by 2060, with steel, concrete, and cement already major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
The Urban ‘Mining’ Model
Across the globe, visionary architects, innovative city planners, and environmentally conscious citizens are beginning to challenge the traditional linear model of “take, make, waste.” They see the inherent value locked within existing urban infrastructure and view cities not just as devourers of raw materials but as storehouses of building resources waiting to be rediscovered and repurposed.
One of the cornerstones of this approach—vividly illustrated in Aspern Seestadt’s urban mining—was pioneered by Professor Anja Rosen, a leading expert in circular construction at the University of Applied Sciences, Münster, Germany.
Prof. Rosen’s notion of urban mining sees demolition debris and discarded materials not as refuse to be landfilled but as valuable raw materials for future construction. She has even developed a sophisticated Urban Mining Index to quantify the potential for material recovery within urban areas, providing a crucial tool for assessing and maximizing resource reuse.
The significance of urban mining becomes even clearer when considering the concept of gray energy. This refers to the embodied energy—the energy consumed in the extraction, processing, manufacturing, and transportation of materials—already locked within existing buildings.
Traditional sustainable construction often focuses on optimizing the operational energy efficiency of new buildings, such as heating, cooling, and electricity use. However, by prioritizing the reuse of existing building materials, urban mining actively conserves this substantial gray energy, potentially greatly reducing the overall environmental impact of new construction. As Prof. Rosen aptly puts it, “With the Urban Mining Index, we aim to guide building materials into loops that are as closed as possible and make the quality of the reuse of value and waste materials in buildings measurable.”
Energy Sources in Aspern Seestadt
Aspern Seestadt’s primary energy sources for the district are heavily weighted toward renewable options, with solar energy harnessed through photovoltaic panels and geothermal energy explored for heating and cooling. Currently, 70% of Seestadt’s energy comes from renewable sources, and the goal is to be completely emission-free by 2030.
Currently, 70% of Seestadt’s energy comes from renewable sources, and the goal is to be completely emission-free by 2030.
Waste management in the district benefits directly from the city of Vienna’s system, according to Robert Grüneis, a member of the district’s executive board, in an email exchange with The Earth & I. It emphasizes comprehensive source separation programs to maximize recycling and divert waste from landfills, transforming it into valuable resources. City authorities are also planning to build a state-of-the-art recycling center within Seestadt in the coming years.
“There are no gas-fired individual heating systems or other fossil fuel-based heating systems in Seestadt,” Grüneis said. “At the same time, more and more projects using alternative energy sources were introduced—some of which are already largely energy self-sufficient. The range of energy solutions in use includes solar energy/photovoltaics, waste heat recovery from appliances and occupants, and geothermal energy.”
In 2028, Vienna’s first deep geothermal plant is scheduled to go into operation on the Seestadt site. The 40-megawatt plant, drilled down to a depth of 3,000 meters (about 1.8 miles) to tap into the heat of a natural hot water reservoir beneath Vienna, is expected to supply heat for 20,000 households.
Lessons Learned So Far
As Aspern Seestadt continues to evolve, valuable lessons are being learned from the extensive planning and construction process that began 18 years ago. One key takeaway is the crucial importance of early and continuous stakeholder engagement, focusing on “a dedicated development company as a central platform,” Hinterkörner said. This allows for “developing a vision, translating it into clear quality standards, and integrating development, sales, planning, marketing, and communications” all at once.
The unity and active collaboration of all stakeholders over time also allow for agile work in an interdisciplinary team, including quick decision-making, which saves money. Moreover, this administrative seamlessness lends credibility to the brand and to the site itself through maintaining clear and ambitious quality standards. Such teamwork, Hinterkörner said, makes it easier to continuously question established processes and practices and to break out of administrative silos.
Grüneis agrees. “Investment costs, which the developers initially expected to be very high, can be minimized through a closely guided dialogue process on an expert level. This approach leads to more cost-effective and environmentally friendly energy solutions in operation,” he says.
“From our perspective,” he adds, “the more ecologically sound solution is usually also the more economically beneficial in the long run.”
The journey toward a truly eco-friendly urban future will undoubtedly be complex and require a concerted effort from policymakers, industry leaders, and individual citizens. However, the tangible progress being made in places like Aspern Seestadt offers a beacon of hope.
By embracing the principles of urban mining, prioritizing sustainable transportation and energy systems, and fostering a culture of reuse and resourcefulness, cities can begin to be rebuilt into resilient, vibrant, and environmentally responsible ecosystems for generations to come. The future of urban centers, and indeed the planet, may very well depend on builders’ ability to see the potential not just in the new but in the valuable resources that already exist.
*Robert Selle is a freelance writer and editor based in Bowie, Maryland.
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