UIA Berlin
international competition project
professor simon atkinson
project uia berlin 2002 international competition
client city of berlin
location heidestrasse berlin mitte, germany
submission may 2002
publication a-matter magazine june 2002
The
project aims to bind new development to the administrative and capitalist
city of Berlin, and download to the human scale its enormous potential for
social interaction. He is proposing a geometric grid inspired by Turkish
geometry and arts.
The conceptual background
of the project relates to the weaving of a carpet, a fabric, a texture,
which will restore the communication between the city and its citizens.
The weaving, as an philosophical principle of society, becomes objects and
spaces within the diploma project.
Location:
Heidestrasse, Berlin-Mitte, Germany
The site presents a situation of conflict. A social fracture in the site,
better known as the Berlin Wall, gave the area a feeling of emptiness and
coldness. It is still the border between the ex-communist Berlin, and the
old occidental side of the Moabit area, a not necessarily friendly hybrid
environment between many different cultures that don't understand the
meaning of coexisting.
Subject:
Urban Development on the Central Berlin Area. Housing, Retail and Public
spaces.
This project offers enormous potential - it is a perfect place to create
architecture for the community. The proposal is for a third axis for the
central city. Postdamer Platz represents the business axis; Reichstag and
Bundeskanzleramt the government institutional axis; and Heidestrasse (the
proposed project), the people, the social axis. This means all the people,
and each community, are invited to join this incredible, progressive
attitude of the city, and not just to sit down and watch how beautifully
the rest of the city grows.
Concept
The success of modern civilization is the skill to understand diversity -
as a society, as an interest, as a feeling and as an ideology. Berlin, as
a city, is shaped by the juxtaposition of many different ideals and
cultures, but is still a fractured city, both physically and in its need
for racial and political healing.
The conceptual background of the project relates to the weaving of a carpet, a fabric, a texture, which will restore the communication between the city and its citizens. This carpet-weaving idea is also based on the ethnicity of the area as Berlin is one of the largest Turkish communities in the world, and, especially in this area, the presence of this community is very powerful.
Program
Commercial and Business Spaces on the south side, next to the Lehrter
Train Station and to the Spreebogen Governmental Complex.
Housing facing the existing canal on the east side of the site, and
commercial and entertainment areas facing the west proposed canal. Several
public spaces such as the main two plazas, the stars, collaborate to the
fluidness and effectiveness of the project. Existing loading cranes in the
site reutilized as pedestrian bridges through the site connecting the east
with the west in a metaphorical context.
Urban fabric
So the intention of the project is to show now a city open to all the
citizens, a city that understands heritage, but not only in a European
manner. In order to achieve this goal, the project goes deep into the
development of the site, proposing a geometric grid inspired by Turkish
geometry and arts. So now it is the time to weave, a weave that connects
the influences from the formal city and the Lehrter Station, with the
historic images of the site, with the natural resources, and with the
people. Then the democratic city has an urban fabric, a metropolitan
carpet, representing a new face to Berlin.
project publication a-matter magazine june 2002 (www.a-matter.com)
Designed by JAGP arquitectos