October 24th, 2022

From the hands of NRW Construction Minister Ina Scharrenbach, ASTOC ARCHITECTS AND PLANNERS, Lorber Paul Architekten and studio grüngrau Landschaftsarchitektur accepted the 1st prize for the NRW 2021 state competition on October 21, 2022. The joint contribution of the three planning offices had successfully emerged in May 2022 from the state competition organized by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Municipal Affairs, Building and Digitalization, the Chamber of Architects of North Rhine-Westphalia and the City of Würselen and processed by 25 participants.

How can village structures and transformation areas be developed and enhanced in a forward-looking way? Our goal is to use the existing potential of the village structure and to develop a "new village" that offers its inhabitants a high-quality living space. Open social interaction, intergenerational living, identification with one's house and neighborhood, and sustainable and resource-saving construction form the starting point for the concept of the five building groups. The buildings of the five residential courtyards are each grouped around a small village square where neighborly life takes place. In the coming years, the current brownfield site is to be developed. We are pleased about the first prize in the NRW state competition!

From the appraisal of the jury:

With four spacious residential courtyards, the designers create a loosened-up basic village structure with a defining inner green corridor that links the surrounding green areas very well. The residential groups promote the formation of addresses and offer the basis for sustainable and lively neighborhoods through the small-scale mix of different building types, housing forms and financing models (freely financed and subsidized). The loose arrangement of the buildings was expressly appreciated, but its feasibility was also critically discussed. The implementation by an investor, however, offers the best prerequisites for further developing such a structure in further proceedings with the planners and for securing it in a tailor-made legal plan. The proposed architectures meet the urban planning and structural requirements for an implementation in timber construction and offer all possibilities to realize an exemplary timber housing estate.

Particularly convincing is the simple principle of directly connecting the residential yards to the existing access roads. This minimizes the development effort and keeps the inner green corridor completely free of motorized individual traffic. In addition, the individual building groups can be realized as independent building sections, if necessary, due to the individual connection. The traffic reduction is supported by the proposed "parking barns" (neighborhood garages), which on the one hand reduce the driving movements in the development courtyards to a necessary minimum and on the other hand keep the courtyard areas free of stationary traffic. The jury recommends that the "parking barns" be planned with at least two levels and further developed as multifunctional and convertible volumes.

The integrated, central and protected location of the daycare center with its connection to the inner green corridor and the adjacent landscaped open areas was also praised. The administrative complex, designed as another courtyard complex, also fits seamlessly into the scale of the overall village impression.

In addition to linking the courtyards together and interconnecting them with the surrounding area, the connecting internal green space offers a variety of informal opportunities for open space use. The design as a fruit tree meadow supports the village-rural character and should be thought of as close to nature as possible.

Overall, the work represents an all-around convincing and exemplary contribution to the development of a village-small town wood-frame neighborhood.

 

Group photo: Andreas Schmitter. Shown are, from left to right: Heiner Farwick (Chairman of the Jury), Nils Stoya (ASTOC ARCHITECTS AND PLANNERS), Ingo Kanehl (Managing Partner ASTOC ARCHITECTS AND PLANNERS), Rüdiger Hundsdörfer (Associate Partner ASTOC ARCHITECTS AND PLANNERS), Gert Lober (Managing Partner Lorber Paul Architekten), Annette Paul (Managing Partner Lorber Paul Architekten), Klaus Brüggenolte (Vice President of the Chamber of Architects of North Rhine-Westphalia), Ina Scharrenbach (Minister for Home Affairs, Municipal Affairs, Construction and Digitalization of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia), Peter Berner (Managing Partner ASTOC ARCHITECTS AND PLANNERS), Roger Nießen (Mayor of the City of Würselen), Binyang Xie (studio grüngrau Landscape Architecture), Christian Ewers (Managing Director studio grüngrau Landscape Architecture), Prof. Dr. Hermann Bühlbecker (Owner of the Lambertz Group)

 

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