More than 20 years after the reunification, what shapes Berlin today?
The news broadcaster Al Jazeera interviewed three Berliners, and one is our founder Thomas Stellmach, who experienced city changes in the post-wall ’90s and now understands current ongoing processes such as gentrification and recognises the importance of a vision for Berlin and Brandenburg’s future development.
We were delighted to be considered as a valuable source to understand and reflect on the city.
Last Friday March 26th, Thomas Stellmach took part of the discussion in the Masterclass The City as a Renewable Resource in the session Project, organised by the University of Venice.
After the presentations by Paola Viganò and Günter Vogt, Thomas Stellmach shared the virtual floor with the speakers, Aristide Athanassiadis and Margherita Manfra for a discussion.
The Masterclass explored the unsustainable and unfeasible models of urban growth, expansion and consumption contrasted with a paradigm shift that proposes the role of urban space as a renewable resource. It interprets the city-territory as a stratification of actions, practices, projects and policies.
Thomas Stellmach started by presenting the bridge between global challenges, such as rapid population growth, resource consumption and climate change, and the added layer of “the unexpected” when it comes to city planning. Exemplifying with his work together with UN-Habitat, he concluded that we are still looking at the city as an answer to complex social problems. He considered that the nuance is to shape the city in a way that it becomes renewable is the way urbanisation is developed.
Cooperation is a way to cope with complex urban issues. As a Humboldt Foundation and guest researcher at TSPA Aleksandra Katasonova will present some of her results exploring forms and effects of cooperation in urban development.
Join her in the online Tedx event next Tuesday 29th of September at 11am.
Register here: https://tedxkanzlerpark.online/…
Exciting updates about the TSPA Indonesian adventure!
Recently, part of our team flew from Berlin all the way to Indonesia to carry on another step of the inclusive process that is having place in the amazing context of Java Island. The ambitious goal is working together, with international partners and local experts, to define sustainable and shared ways to deal with the multiple issues that the Indonesian cities are facing. Currently, back in Berlin, we are finalising the outputs of the path started on field, paving the way for the future phases. But, let’s take a step back…
Last week our team joined Bureau B+B in Amsterdam for an intensive design workshop.
Together, we developed the concept of our design proposal for Blankenburger Süden, a 120 hectares urban development on the north edge of Berlin.
The results of our collaboration provided ideas and images to develop a new structural and utilisation concept for the largest urban expansion site in the city.
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TSPA together with B+B has been selected as one of the teams that will form part of the cooperative workshop process in the development of Blankenburger Süden, Berlin largest urban expansion site. Starting in autumn 2019 and continuing until spring 2020, four teams will develop as many different test designs as possible for the planned new city district. The resulting ideas and images will be used to develop a new structural and utilisation concept (so-called “Alternative D”) for the south of Blankenburg.
Our team is happy to be part of a cooperative workshop process in which teams create the test designs simultaneously. The workshop process is the third building block of the so-called laboratory phase. The first two building blocks of the laboratory phase are “Sharpening key objectives” and “Clarifying framework settings”.
The area to which the sketches will be tested is of around 150 hectares. It extends from the former location of the Fachhochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft (FHTW) in the north to the approx. 90 ha core area – formerly a Rieselfeld, today arable land – to the Heinersdorf industrial estate in the south. In addition, the test designs will focus on the connection to the neighbouring neighbourhoods.
Some of the topics we will be discussing critically and creatively are: uses and functions, urban planning, open spaces and ecology, mobility and transport, and interdependencies with the neighbourhoods.
We are very happy to exchange ideas in this workshop with our salted collegues:
YelowZ
bgmr Landschaftsarchitekten
UmbauStadt
MLA+
Fugmann Janotta und Partner
CITYFOERSTER
Felixx Landscape
The south of Blankenburger Süden development is a response to the housing shortage in the state of Berlin located in what is still considered “a phantom” of green grounds and one of Pankow’s most rural regions. The 90 hectare core area projects to accommodate 5,000 to 6,000 apartments.
“Four teams of planners with a focus on urban development and landscape architecture will take part in the cooperative, urban planning workshop procedure. These four teams were selected via an EU-wide award procedure” explains Katrin Dietl, spokeswoman for the Senate Department for Urban Development (Schubert, 2019;Berliner Morgenpost).
In response to the housing shortage in the state of Berlin, the last legislative period prompted the search for suitable locations for housing construction throughout the entire Berlin city area. In spring 2016, the choice fell not only on ten further locations but also on the state-owned properties in the south of Blankenburg.
When the test drafts are available in spring 2020 – they should be as varied as possible and deliver concrete ideas and pictures – a draft can be derived from them which the Berlin House of Representatives will finally vote on.
Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Wohne, “Blankenburger Süden Aktuelle Entwicklung” (2019)
Schubert, Thomas. “Ein „Klimawald“ für den Blankenburger Süden” ( 23.08.2019)
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