for large scale projects, like the communal garden of heidi merkl's gardeners' association, you needven more patience. but the joy of being able to harvest fruit and vegetables makes up for the toil. what an abundance! and they have this fabulous name - they're called communists! what gets grown and when - in the one thousand square meters of garden - is a collective decision. vegetable gardens, sustainable architecture, good public transport access - none of this comes cheap. another core principle of seestadt is social diversity. the sale of real estate within the project to private investors helps fund social housing and public developments. here, sustainability also makes economic sense. vast amounts of data are collected to ensure an optimized energy supply. europe's largest ever energy research project - which employs over 200 people - is underway in seestadt aspern. sensors are installed all over the district. they record in real time how much energy each building consumes and how much it produces. this particular building is almost net zero, it uses just a little more electri