No Privilege!

During my Master‘s, I was involved in topics such as communal living and how we deal with our ground. What do we share with each other? What belongs to the community? Who builds the city and for whom?\r\nWhen I heard about the upcoming transformation, I was interested yet very concerned. I feared a lifeless „refinement“ of the former industrial district.

Since the area will constantly change due to users and visitors, the previous history should not simply be erased and built over. The area‘s railway past remains legible in the new quarter and became the leading reference for the project.Mobility and over-formability are given a permanent presence and lend the quarter its own character. The easiest way to explain the project is to use a color code that can be found on all the plans: Red: longated arcades/arbors and rue interieurs placed parallel to the rail tracks form the structure that holds together and connects the whole area, almost like the corridor of a train carriage. The red areas serve not only vertical and horizontal access, but also for social networking. The rue interieurs and arbors are repeatedly supplemented by communal areas. These are intended to offer users possibilities that they could not afford individually, but which become feasible through sharing with many. Individual space consumption is thus to be reduced. The red areas, like the black areas, are permanent, but they can be appropriated and co-designed. Black: These connecting lines are docked to a concrete frame, corresponding to the seats of a train carriage, that can be extended according to individual wishes. The concrete skeleton is kept as simple and reduced as possible, so that there is a wide range of possibilities for the extensions. Green: The individually extendable parts. The new urban quarter should offer space for new and experimental forms of housing, such as cluster townhouses, urban tiny houses, dormitories, work/residential studios, etc. But also for office and commercial space, leisure activities and a variety of other uses. This rather experimental form of housing naturally also requires its own organization. this should be structured in such a way that the users and residents play a central role. They conclude lease agreements with a commission or present their ideas and concerns to it. The whole thing is then planned and built by architects and other specialist planners.