Gaisbacher – My Dreamhome is not a House

“My Dreamhouse is not a House” is a long-term project by Julia Gaisbacher that focuses on the Austrian architect Eilfried Huth and one of the first, publicly funded participatory social housing projects in Austria from the 1970s. Huth developed a working method that allowed architects and future residents to collaborate on equal terms, resulting in single, occupant-designed houses within residential blocks. His projects were unique because no participatory approach was available outside the privately financed market in Austria at that time. About 50 years later, Julia Gaisbacher started an artistic research project observing the results of Eilfried Huth’s architectural experiment. In interviews, she asked residents how they had experienced the participatory planning process and its impacts on the long-term living quality in these built environments and combined them with archive material. On a visual level she documented the unique facades of the houses each representing the owners.