Silja Tillner is an architect and urban designer who enjoys working parallel in both these fields, e.g. on large planning projects and on careful interventions in the historic city fabric.
Silja Tillner and Alfred Willinger are principals of Tillner & Willinger architects, a Vienna based firm that has specialized in city planning, urban design, office and residential buildings. The office is known for a holistic design approach, addressing all topics in the life-cycle of a project: planning, site-development, urban design, use concepts, architectural design and detail planning. Sustainable design with respect for the environment and ecological issues is regarded as a matter of high importance. The office has acquired all of their building commissions through competitions and received numerous awards, (for example the Bauhaus Award for exceptional achievement in urban planning or the „ar+d“(architecture+design) award, the 2005 LEAF Award 2005 (Leading European Architects Forum) in the category urban revitalization and the Gold Medal at the Bienal Miami+Beach 2005 in the category landscape design).
Silja has served on several prestigious planning boards:
2002 – 2010 she was a member of the board of trustees of IBA Stadtumbau (Urban Redevelopment), in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. 2008 – 2011 she was a member of the advisory board of the City of Vienna for urban planning and urban development. Since 2013 she has served on the advisory board for urban planning and urban development in the new town-development “Seestadt Aspern” in Vienna.
Silja Tillner studied architecture at the University of Technology of Vienna and at the Academy of Fine Arts, followed by a post-graduate study of urban design in L.A. (UCLA, GSAUP), where she graduated in 1990. 1990-1994 she worked in Los Angeles at the Community Redevelopment Agency, where she was responsible for urban design projects in Downtown L.A.
Silja has regularly undertaken teaching assignments, 2004–2005 as a guest professor for urban design at the University of Technology in Innsbruck, 2008-2011 as a visiting expert for urban planning and urban design at Politecnico di Milano, 2011 – 2013 at the Vienna University of Technology. Following her urbanistic study on international planning and high-rise concepts for the City of Vienna, she has been regularly invited to lecture on high-rise concepts at international conferences.