Reinhold Weichlbauer (1962), Albert Josef Ortis (1961)

For Weichlbauer/Ortis, chaos theory and fractal geometry are part and parcel of the project design process. The software and the random calculations that they apply come into play before and during plan design. Their goal consists in minimizing subjectivity in order to get as close as possible to the basic design and thus let its own interpretation intervene in a mechanical process. Their housing project DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) at Gratkorn, near Graz, illustrates this rule of ambiguity by marking the borderline between two heterogeneous environments. On the one hand, a zone of private dwellings, on the other, blocks of apartment buildings: the project forms a transitory reflection between the apartment buildings and the individual homes by way of an interplay of balconies and terraces subject to volumetric variations in “drawers”. The suspended elements are underpinned by concepts of time and movements stemming from chaos theory and fractal geometry. Reinhold Weichlbauer has been teaching at the HTBLA Ortweinschule in Graz since 1998. Albert Josef Ortis was an assistant at the Graz Technical University from 1990 to 1996.