Creative City | E13 Runner Up
Europan13's Runner-up project on Schwäbisch Gmünd Hardt district in Stuttgart.
The aim of the project is to find a new way to revitalize a neighborhood deeply marked by its past. The purpose of " Creative City" is to link key new elements of the city around a strong and evolving public space.
The city of Schwäbisch Gmünd is part of the Stuttgart Metropolitan region. By its status the city has the network logistic support adapted to its location, creating a polarity that tends to evolove in relationship with Stuttgart. The Hardt district owns a strategic position inside Schwäbisch Gmünd, close from the city-centre and linked with the Oberbettrigen district. Affected by modern changes in the post-war period, the Hardt district was first influenced by its characteristic as a former US army base.
The area is evolving and needs to integrate new amenities. With this evolution, the substratum itself needs to change its state.
In the Hardt district of Schwäbisch Gmünd the proposition is to create nodes based on social programs, housings and cultural spaces. This new centralities are powering the city, transforming it to an attractive place for differents kind of people having their own unique rythm of life.
Temporality is an ingredient of a dynamic city that comes together with the addition of the heterogeneous steps of the city, offers various events throughout the year, and creates life places in perpetual evolution.
By organising an adapted and aware public space, it’s possible to create a tension between each hub in a way to develop a perennial urban continuum. The public space link the differents nodes to create a new pathway from north to south, crossing the barrier of the Oberbettringer road. The new constructions sites are divided in four key points :
The site A become the social center of the district by the addition of a mixed-uses building that conbine Family center, associative spaces, eco-shops and senior housings.
On the site B the creation of a Green village provides a new urban scale in the district. Organized around a generous garden on its central point, the space is dedicated to the creation of a new way of living mixing urban and rural.
On site C, across the Oberbettringer road , the new LeL guest house is a mix between apartments and student dormitories taht provide generous outdoor spaces within the needed density. A cultural foundation is also planned on this site, creating a new way to break the boundaries.
The site D is an area based on the idea of a new way to save energy in order to create a more responsible and aware city. By mixing housings and officies, the whole area permit the introduction of a «smart grid» in order to set up an intelligent way of using our energy resources.
The concept of «Creative City» represents a powerful proposal based on various scales, from daily needs to new ways of living. By seting up an awared approach of each site’s context and their temporalities, the «Creative City» aims to become an adapted tool to an area in mutation, providing a respectful architecture inside a dynamic urban plainning putting Mankind and Living conditions as its priority.
