- 2026 Silver Prize
- From Public buildings
MB 110
Project Description
Located along Munich Federal Highway in Salzburg, MB110 transforms a former commercial strip into a contemporary urban structure that reconnects fragmented edges of the city. Positioned between the railway corridor and the infrastructural landscape of the highway, the project responds to a site shaped by noise, traffic and dispersed suburban development.
The elongated site forms an important gateway condition at the intersection of major urban infrastructures. In response, the project establishes a clear architectural edge towards the highway while simultaneously creating protected residential spaces and a new urban identity for the surrounding neighborhood.
The building is conceived as an L-shaped volume with terraced upper floors that reduce scale towards the adjacent residential fabric. Through its sculptural massing, the project mediates between infrastructure and housing, density and openness. Apartments are oriented towards light, views and privacy, while the stepped terraces generate outdoor spaces protected from traffic emissions and noise.
A newly established pedestrian and cycling connection along the site strengthens the public realm and improves connectivity between neighboring districts. The ground floor integrates commercial functions, activating the street and contributing to the urban character of the area.
Green roofs, vertical planting and integrated landscape strategies soften the infrastructural environment and reinforce the ecological ambitions of the project. Rather than treating the location as a residual urban condition, MB110 reinterprets it as a place of urban transformation — where infrastructure, housing and landscape become part of a new metropolitan identity.
Christine Lechner (*1960, Salzburg) is an Austrian architect, interior architect and co-founder of Lechner & Lechner Architects in Salzburg. After studying Interior Architecture and Architecture at the University of Art and Design Linz, she founded the studio together with architect Horst Lechner in 1987.
Her work operates at the intersection of architecture, interior space, urban development and experimental spatial concepts. A recurring focus of her practice is the relationship between landscape, atmosphere, materiality and urban density, as well as the sensitive transformation of existing and historic structures. Together with Lechner & Lechner Architects, she developed projects ranging from small-scale interior interventions to larger urban and cultural buildings, with a particular emphasis on timber construction and architecture within historic contexts.
International and national attention was drawn to projects such as the Residential and Studio House Lechner in Salzburg’s UNESCO World Heritage district, the experimental “Amorphous Living Sculpture” in Leopoldskron, and the timber-built Youth Hostel Gerlosplatte. The studio’s work has been widely published and exhibited in architectural contexts in Austria and abroad.
Alongside her architectural practice, Christine Lechner has been active as a guest lecturer and critic, including at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts Salzburg and ETH Zurich.
Following the departure of Horst Lechner senior in 2015, the studio has continued under the next generation. Together with her sons Horst Michael Lechner and Paul Lechner, Christine Lechner continues to develop the work of Lechner & Lechner Architects between architecture, transformation, landscape and urban development.