Local Communication

Like many towns in this region of the former German Democratic Republic, Leinefelde is undergoing extensive depopulation and suffers from zoning into districts. The project is envisaged as a typological hybridisation of three distinct urban areas: the Südstadt district, a product of the mass housing of the sixties; the town centre; the new housing estates of the nineties, allowing the requalification of this entrance to the town. The innovative idea consists in transporting nature to the city gates, avoiding the dislocated image of the existing entrance generated by discontinuous housing estates. A typological and morphological graduation between these three urban zones enables the junction of the site with each of its peripheries: a “wave” (progression) starts with individual houses to the west, then houses in suspended strips and finally raised duplex villas, in a dialogue with the scale of the long apartment blocks to the east. The fragmentation of these blocks into phases reduces the number of habitations and permits east/west vistas able to connect their core visually with the project zone. The internal reconfiguration of the dwellings is coupled with a variety of transitional interior/exterior spaces: balconies, loggias, winter gardens, bathrooms “with a view”, private gardens at the foot of the buildings. The aim of the project, through its different scales (territory, town, habitat), is to redefine the overall image of the way into Leinefelde.