Preamble 

The design goal for this competition entry was the revitalization of the traditional planning ethos of the European City through the challenges of urban sustainability. Vacant, leftover and available lofts are used and filled with functions. The identity of the location is strengthened by intensity and concentration. The strong individual desire for a social life with neighborly engagement that gives security and confidence, evoked by the demand for greater personal mobility and high speed of communication, is herewith satisfied. The project focuses not only onto the phase of active work life with its measurable share of results, but particularly takes into account all life phases of a person.

Second Prize, Landeswettbewerb Nordrhein-Westphalen Competition

Urban Parti 

The building as a striking structure underlines the situation of a town gate at its location and enforces the entrance situation into the township of Jöllenbeck. The building’s mass and complexity clearly differentiates the structure from the environment, a connection to the former settlement is reestablished by the building’s consistent composition. Permeations connect the city configuration onto the site. The project’s building mass accomplishes compact living platforms that limit the aerial growth in the periphery; an implementation of such structures is possible in similar lots in urban areas. Further urban fragmentation and emergence of inner city wasteland is avoided, the concept convinces through sustainability. Being located close to the Ravensberger hills, the project acts as a copula between urban densification and open landscape. The lieu’s identity is invigorated, the building is diaphanous and allows a communication with its surrounding.

The building appears sculpture-like and private. Crossing the semi-public inner courtyard, users and visitors can reach each unit without any barriers. The inner courtyard is dominated by decks, wooden footbridges and the so-called “babble pockets” that are connected vertically by stairs and two elevators. Each unit, naturally light-flooded through floor-to-ceiling windows, contains of several qualities of external space. Introverted spaces and balconies, semi-public meeting places or extroverted decks and gatherings provide a wide range of possibilities to come together and meet other people, both as well within the private unit as in the whole building complex. The space arrangement offers a large range of various inhabitant or life models, living together and possibilities of encounter, both within the apartments as well as within the cluster. The habitant models shift between privateness and public activities. To see or to be seen, publicity and private life stand together in an exciting ratio. Many decks allow extroverted views into the town and its surroundings. As an antipode, the collaborative introverted inner yards support intensive contact between the tenants. This engenders own identities and micro-neighborhoods within the building cluster and supports the engagement for the place.

Units of various sizes for family living (living towers / maisonette types) and elderly (single story) are allotted throughout the structure. They allow diverse forms of various living models and assure a volitional user mixture. Social relationships are encouraged, neighborhood and contiguousness generate social warmth, generation spanning commitment and communication originates. Without taxing the plan scheme too much through flexible units, the strength of the system is founded on the flexibility that is obtained through an exchange bourse for apartments of different sizes. Each tenant or owner has the opportunity to trade the own apartment for another that matches actual demands. Different stages and needs of life are therefore supported inside the social and built structure. The development of personal life styles don’t have to be involved by abandonment of grown social values or neighborhood commitment.

Finally, further functional combinations are possible within the proposed cluster in different locations, as there are models of working and living, the mixture of student apartments with family and elderly living and so on.

Project Blackboard: 

Competition: 2003

Second Prize in Competition

Architecture: Atelier Jörg Rügemer

Client: Landesverwaltung Nordrhein-Westphalen