Our Story
A city full of empty buildings.
A city full of people looking for space.
We saw the paradox. So we built a bridge.
Margot Deerenberg
Founder, Das Packhaus & Paradocks
Urban sociologist and human geographer. MSc Sociology from University of Amsterdam, Architecture & Spatial Planning from TU Wien. Former member of bauchplan ).(, an interdisciplinary landscape architecture collective. City Hype Award and Vienna Design Week Award winner.
“Zwischennutzung is not about filling empty spaces. It’s about creating possibilities that wouldn’t exist otherwise.”
The Building
Das Packhaus lives in a 1970s office block that used to be the Austrian Federal Computing Center (Bundesrechenzentrum). After the government moved out, it sat empty for eight years. That's when Margot knocked on the door.
2014
Paradocks approaches the owner (Conwert) asking for two floors. The answer: "All or nothing." Margot takes the whole building. 2,300 m² across seven floors.
The First Call
An open call for tenants. Three times more applications than available spaces. The selection isn't about who pays most. It's about who fits. IT next to fashion. Design next to social enterprises.
Today
4,500 m² across two locations. 500+ members. 98% occupancy. From what was supposed to be a two-year experiment to one of Vienna's longest-running coworking spaces.
Room Seeks Idea
Most coworking spaces ask: "What can you pay?" We ask: "What are you building?"
The name says it all. Paradocks exists because of a paradox: empty buildings in a city where people can't find space. Our job is to dock ideas to rooms. To create collisions between people who wouldn't normally meet. An IT startup next to a film studio. A UX researcher next to a game developer.
That's not an accident. It's curated. We believe the best ideas come from unexpected combinations.
The ground floor is open to everyone. A café, a bike workshop, yoga classes. You can look in from the street. That's intentional. We're not a closed club. We're part of the neighborhood.
Das Packhaus in Numbers
4,500
Square meters
500+
Members
98%
Occupancy
10+
Years running
What's Next
Interim use was once a fringe idea. Today, it's part of Vienna's urban planning vocabulary, thanks in part to what we proved here. Buildings don't have to sit empty. Communities don't have to wait for perfect conditions.
We're still here. Still 98% full. Still hosting 80+ events a year. Still believing that the best workspace is one where you never know who you'll meet at the coffee machine.