While Berlin keeps growing, the city is confronted with an increased demand for affordable living space, among other things. In addition to the issue of redensification of inner-city locations and large housing estates, the planning focus is increasingly shifting to peripheral settlement areas, which are characterized by outdated suburban building typologies, low density, increased individual traffic and high land consumption.
Future urban development will be confronted with the challenge of creating sustainable, space-saving urban areas and suitable building typologies on the city's periphery, with a density appropriate to the nearby agricultural and natural landscapes. To this end, HOWOGE Wohnungsbaugesellschaft mbH conducts a student ideas competition on the topic of "sustainable and high-quality urban expansion in northeast Berlin".
The focus is on the exemplary development of urban, lively and sustainable residential quarters for currently undeveloped and agriculturally used areas in the northeast region of Berlin along the development axis Heinersdorf - Blankenburg - Karow - Buch and in adjacent areas of the Barnim Hochfläche.
The task of the competition is to define approaches for an abstract space in the northeast of Berlin in the form of so-called "urban building blocks" for suitable building typologies in combination with contemporary development, mobility concepts and high-quality open spaces. The desired result of the competition is a so-called urban puzzle for a planning area of 16 hectares in total, consisting of a series of modular urban building blocks or tiles with the dimensions 100m x 100m. Four of the 16 tiles are to be largely characterized by green and open spaces. These urban building blocks are to serve as an ideal basis for the development of concrete comparable urban spaces in the northeast of Berlin.