Park statt parken

Almost 15 years ago, a decision was made in Heilbronn: The 2019 BUGA (Germany’s foremost garden and landscape architecture biennial) was to take place in the city. An industrial brownfield area was to be upgraded and converted into an extensive garden and park landscape. The BUGA lasted 173 days. After that, most of it removed to make way for a new housing development. The Neckarbogen site was too important for inner city development and more living space for was in urgent demand in the growing city. The question arises: couldn't it have been done differently? In an "alternate timeline", Heilbronn's underused parking garages are the heroes of a campaign to save the city's largest public green space. At the same time, they demand a decision as to what is more important to the city space for cars or living space?

Heilbronn has four large parking garages that can be converted to accommodate the housing requirements of the still growing city. As they were built with generous dimensions and floor heights, such a conversion can be relatively straightforward. The proposed housing units consist of a mix of smaller studios, cluster apartments and units for larger households, thus more accurately reflecting the actual local demand for housing.

Place
Heilbronn
Year
2023
Author(s)
Oluwasegun Ogunsola
Team
Arno Brandlhuber, Bing Liu, Giacomo Ardesio, Jolene Lee, Meghan Rolvien, Severin Bärenbold, Olaf Grawert, Pan Hu