Borderland Peripheries. from dead end - to new beginning

Abstract: It’s been 34 years ago now since the iron curtain has parted the European continent and its inhabitants in an East and a West. The analysed area for the following thesis on the border between northern Austria and southern Czechia gives a case example of a region, that is still suffering from an era, where one sky-direction has been erased from people’s everyday living and thinking – leaving the border areas as a dead end for either country. Gmünd (AT) and České Velenice (CZ) are today the only neighbouring cities, that remain on the border between Czechia and Austria, raising their potential in terms of future cross-border initiatives. Although some transnational projects have already been started in the past, they never met a fertile ground to continue the idea. A new development within both cities across the border, which promotes an interactive everyday environment, could help to raise the quality and attractiveness of the cities themselves, but also showcase the diversity that comes with opening up to a neighbour that has been neglected. Therefore, the idea is to strengthen the cities resilience by working across the border, using a currently parting line as a key asset for an upcoming and thriving environment of the future. Taking existing ideas and structures of communal value and weaving them immediately within the city fabric, should give an example of how a sustainable and flourishing life could also look like in the current borderland peripheries. A special focus in the project is directed to the social sustainability of the site – creating spaces to encounter and collaborate to eventually overcome the hostile ground of the border and pave the way to life where aversion is replaced by plurality. A new sustainable and resilient city, from living on borders to living across borders. From dead end - to new beginning.