Regensburg (DE)

Inhabited milieu's challenges

The Bavarian city of Regensburg, located on the Danube, is a prosperous large city with a high quality of life that enjoys great popularity in German city rankings. Around 170,000 residents live and work here, and the historic old town is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The competition site, which is home to an aging housing estate consisting of 18 apartment buildings, is located in the south of the city area and is about 4.2 hectares in size.
Most of the buildings in the project area were built in the 1960s and some have already been modernised or replaced by new construction. Due to the intended redevelopment measures, many flats are currently vacant, which means that there is an urgent and large structural restructuring potential.
The challenge is to carefully develop the existing neighbourhood in a sustainable way and to make it more attractive, mixed and colourful through 1. new construction, 2. conversion and 3. modernisation.
The new building is to be constructed on a currently empty plot in the middle of the neighbourhood. The conversion involves an existing building that is currently empty and can be extended, raised, restructured or partially demolished and rebuilt. The modernisation measures can be applied to several buildings. As these are also empty, the interior of the building can be reorganised and proposals for new uses can also be made.
Furthermore, the design task is to develop a holistic urban concept that takes into account both moderate redensification possibilities for housing and social and infrastructural needs (e.g. day care centre, café, community rooms, etc.).At the conceptual level, ideas for open spaces and the traffic situation (car parking spaces, pathways) should also be developed.

Questions to the competitors

How can the existing neighbourhood be revitalised through urban design, architectural, open space d and programmatic measures? How can a socially mixed, sustainable and lively neighbourhood be created? Which new buildings fit in with the existing ones? How can existing buildings be adapted, converted and further developed in a contemporary way? What floor plans are needed for a heterogeneous group of users? How do single parents or students live? What does communal living mean? Can co-working be integrated? What social infrastructure does such a neighbourhood need? Where is there a day-care centre or a small café? Where are communal or private gardens, a youth room or communal areas? Where does the heterogeneous neighbourhood meet - indoors, outdoors or on the roofs?
What do potentially adaptable floor plans look like? Is it possible to live and work in one house? How should the ground floor zones be designed to promote exchange and togetherness? What open spaces are needed? Where do the children play, what do the young people do, where do the elderly linger?
And what about traffic? How many parking spaces are needed? How can other modes of transport be promoted? Where are bicycles parked? Are there small mobility hubs? What could a future-oriented mobility concept for the neighbourhood look like?
What is the significance of climate-friendly building in this task? What do concrete climate adaptation strategies look like? What alternative heat supply could there be in the future instead of current gas and oil heating systems?
Stadtbau-GmbH Regensburg would like to revitalise the housing estate as soon as possible and therefore wants concrete ideas for the neighbourhood.