The dining hall for the new Vienna University of Economics and Business occupies a large ground floor space in the Hörsaalzentrum. Although connected to the life of the campus, the Mensa reads as a separate environment, a place where students can find a break from their academic activities. To accentuate the break from the seminar room or lecture hall, the Mensa references the natural world outside the newly minted campus. Nature is interpreted as an opportunity to create the perception of environmental change. Nearly all of the opaque walls in the space are clad floor to ceiling in glass panels with a printed panorama of an abstracted forest landscape. The panorama was commissioned to the Austrian artist Markus Leitsch, who rendered an image recognizable as a forest yet strangely suspended between graphic and realistic states. The glass panels are back-lighted with programmed LED strips that change in tone and intensity during the course of the day, reflecting changes in daylight and seasonal conditions. A student that enters the Mensa in the morning will encounter a different environment in the afternoon. To emphasize the light qualities of the wall paneling, the ceiling, columns, and floor surfaces are black, gray, and unadorned. The dining area is divided in four zones, each characterized by a separate seating type that corresponds to particular uses and lighting conditions. All furnishing are made of solid wood stained in different tones. The meal stations, on the other hand, are all concentrated in a curved volume clad in anodized aluminum panels. The volume operates like a large market stall with each meal station having a separate opening.  When the stations are not in use, large mechanical panels slide over the openings creating a taut metallic object. The Mensa is fully digitized and paperless. A digital payment system allows for a space that is absent of long lines and enclosed serving areas.