Gehrenseehöfe Neighbourhood Regeneration

When we study existing cities closer, we can find pieces of land along railways lines, big streets, industrial zones, and other rather “unfriendly” uses, that don’t appear to be suitable for living at first glance. Our cities are also filled with older development that has seen “better days” since they were constructed several decades ago. Together with municipalities, clients, and also self-initiated, we are studying, how such land parcels could get a used better. Usually this is only possible, if we are able to find solutions within the complex constellation of constraints and requirements. This is a daring task, where existing formulas don’t work any more, but where site condition trigger innovation and careful considerations. This former soviet-style housing plot lay empty for many years, because the surrounding busy roads, the adjacent industrial estate, and the requirement to build a new school seemed to make it impossible to develop a feasible and liveable quarter. Through the design process we discovered that a calm interior zone can be created through building a continuous outer block, that protects, yet also defines the quarter. At key moments, the block opens with lively plazas to the context. A sequence of semi public and communal internal spaces provides a comfortable inner structure. Interestingly, the sought-after Reform-Wohnungsbau (reform housing areas) of the 1920s followed a similar strategy: to create attractive housing with a “reformed” block model, that carefully breaks away from the classical, yet overcrowded European block.