Exchange Fence

Part fence, part store, ‘Exchange Fence’ mediates the public boundary by stimulating material exchanges. Boys’ Choir is full of natural resources that are carefully being maintained.

Work: Workshop AA Nanoturism Visiting School

Site: Sekirn, Austria

Mentors: Thomas Randall-Page, Aljosa Dekleva, Jakob Travnik

Partners: Iva Grlic Radman, Elias Bouyssy, Oliver Canins, Amanzholl Kellett

Year: 2021

New Boundary-new economy

The upkeeping of the estate is regularly producing a set of natural “waste” materials, from hay, grass, shrubs and bark to branches and logs, that used to contain specific values in the local farming economy.

In an approach to sustainably resolve land management issues, the intervention looks at the Vienna Choir Boys Campus’ residue material as a resource for stimulating neighbouring relationships through storage and trade of those materials.

Replacing the existing monofunctional and dividing fence and recognising its typology’s contextual, social and economic potential, the project proposes a different type: a ‘deep fence’. This three-dimensional structure still functions as a barrier to the site, which additionally operates as a storage system, storefront and marketplace of natural waste materials produced at the Campus throughout the year. The publicly accessible structure aims to stimulate new rituals of exchange and debate on seasonal maintenance routines, waste and the notion of privatisation of land in the region.