With the new building of the day care centre, another educational and social facility is integrated into the existing urban situation of the city. A spacious forecourt including parking spaces forms the entrance area and offers enough space for daily exchange among parents or for events of the KITA. Various climbing and balancing facilities, a covered sand playground and other play and retreat facilities create a sensory stimulating play experience for all age groups. A separate movement area for the crèche contains further play and learning elements for toddlers. The outdoor space is complemented by beds for all children to sow and harvest their own crops. The generously planned terrace also offers the opportunity to taste delicious fruits and herbs from the snack garden.

For the open space, an attractive sequence from public to private green is proposed – from the “green centre” on the slope, to the more intimate residential courtyards with meeting places and tenants’ gardens, to the private gardens directly at the house – generous balcony zones and façade greening also enable greenery on the upper floors with their own cultivation possibilities. The largely car-free neighbourhood is accessed from the outside, and sufficient parking spaces are provided for stationary traffic on the peripheries. For emergency vehicles and individual deliveries, parking areas and visitor and handicapped parking spaces are available at a maximum distance of 50 m from each building, quiet play streets allow direct access to each flat.

The urban structure of the new Garden City Allendorf will be embedded in a green area with lush planting of various tree species as well as shrub, perennial and grass plantings, with the aim of achieving a high degree of biodiversity and creating a diverse habitat for humans and animals. A low degree of sealing is aimed at in order to form a high urban climatic comfort. The aim is to develop the garden city into an attractive landscape space with an interflowing green structure that has a park-like character and thus creates a high degree of open space quality. The open space structure of the neighbourhood features private, semi-public and public open spaces that offer the residents places of retreat and places to come together, thus generating a diverse and attractive range of places to stay. The urban structure creates several semi-public inner courtyards, which are barrier-free places with multifunctional use and mediate between the residents spatially.

Inden Schophoven’s new green heart.

Open space concept ❘ Over the coming years the entire surrounding area is due to undergo major transformation. An expansive industrial zone, currently inaccessible, will give way to an extensive recreational area with a lake, and this will be made accessible to the public. This will mean a radical change too for Inden Schophoven. This transformation offers a huge opportunity for sustainable development, since the whole region will not only be facing substantial demands due to the change in utilisation, but also climate change. Our design responds to both these key factors. The future park will become part of the region’s tourism concept and at the same time provide a sustainable local recreation area with blue-green infrastructure, while also creating a vista stretching from the Müllenark estate to the lake. Alongside the design for the park, the Müllenark estate will also be incorporated into the project. Here, in future, the focus will be on tourism with the creation of a green inner courtyard incorporating comfortable seating areas for both gastronomy and hotel guests.

The blue-green ribbon ❘ The park stretches from the Müllenark estate to the edge of the future lake. A meandering path connects these two places in a natural way. The path is flanked by a similarly curved retention basin, which splits as it reaches the lake, forming an island. The concept envisages not only the collection, infiltration and evaporation of rainwater within the park grounds, but also channelling rainwater from the surrounding publicly accessible areas into the park and then into the retention basin. Following heavy rainfall, this will create a watercourse leading into the lake. During periods of normal rainfall, individual puddles will form within the trough thus producing constant fluctuation between a water-bearing depression and a dry, utilisable hollow. A selection of resilient plants emphasises precisely these features. In addition to the central depression, some of the remaining areas are also slightly deepened, so they too can serve as retention areas during periods of heavy rainfall.

‘Living with green loggias’ is the leitmotif of our design. The green spaces of the Hilgenfeld connect the neighbourhood and integrate the loggias of the flats.

Building B3.2 with commercial and residential units responds to the square in front of it. It forms a head situation at the corner of the square, in which a publicly accessible use with an effect on the square was to be accommodated.

The public open spaces, which are spread across the entire neighbourhood, offer the opportunity to create a green connection between the individual residential areas. This creates an important cross-connection with isolated widenings and squares that increase the proportion of greenery and offer additional recreational areas and meeting points.

Green spaces

Green spaces, in particular areas with trees, have a positive effect.

Fine dust reduction, pollution control, shade and a cooling effect are the measurable values. But spending time under a tree canopy, sitting in a meadow, gardening together, the aesthetic effect, the pleasant odours of flowers and fruit are just as perceptible as they are beneficial.

When selecting trees and shrubs, care should be taken to ensure that they are not sensitive to the changing conditions caused by extreme summer temperatures, periods of drought, heavy rainfall etc. at the site. Open tree discs and the planting of trees and tree trenches underneath lead to a significant reduction in surface runoff, while at the same time increasing infiltration and evaporation values.

Nourishing shrubs and nesting and breeding opportunities are provided for “green diversity” within the planting areas. When selecting the trees and shrubs, climatic trees will be excluded. Special trees such as the hop hornbeam and the bluebell tree are planted in the squares. In this way, the areas differ from one another and always offer different highlights throughout the year. The flowering and fruiting of the trees is also taken into account in order to provide food for insects and birds. The habitus of the trees is chosen so that they create a large shaded area, especially in the traffic areas.

Rainwater

In the spirit of the sponge city concept, the aim is to keep as much rainwater as possible on site, allow it to seep away and/or evaporate and thus positively change the climate in the neighbourhood in the long term. Where possible, rainwater is therefore drained away via the green spaces. In addition, the lowered square areas provide retention volume for heavy rainfall events. Only excess water is released into infiltration channels. The increased number of trees planted is a key factor. The trees provide shade in the summer months and thus sustainably reduce heating, they absorb rainwater and release some of it again through evaporation.

Open space concept ❘ The Brunnenquartier in Karben will be a future-oriented residential neighbourhood characterised by its blue-green infrastructure. One key component is the green corridor, with areas of park to the north and east. This interconnects with the neighbourhood in the form of green fingers of varying widths and lengths, and so offers an open space of enhanced quality and easy accessibility. For the neighbourhood itself, in terms of its proximity to Frankfurt and a direct connection to rail transport, there is great potential for development.

Neighbourhood squares and green corridors I The green corridors both frame and run through the neighbourhood, with curved paths linking up the key locations in a natural way. The paths are flanked by similarly curved retention basins that widen several times along the way to form wetlands. The concept envisages that not only the rainwater that accumulates in the park is collected, seeps away and evaporates here, but rainwater from all the surrounding residential neighbourhoods too. This will create watercourses and extensive areas of water after heavy rainfall, which, in addition to being ecologically beneficial, will also encourage visitors to play and linger. During periods of normal rainfall, only a few puddles form within these troughs; during longer periods of drought, they lack water altogether, resulting in a constant flux from wet to dry hollows. The selection of resilient plants emphasises precisely these characteristics. Even in dry hollows, the planting also indicates the presence of moist areas. In addition to these deliberately shaped depressions, other areas, such as those devoted to sports, are slightly deepened, so they too can function as retention areas in the event of heavy rainfall. While the green corridors are designed to be more open and flexible in their use, the central park area will become a heavily used neighbourhood park. There are numerous opportunities for getting together here. These include, close to the proposed child day-care centre, a large playground with equipment and a climbing frame made of certified, durable wood.