Re-appropriating modernist housing
MEHRINGPLATZ CONTINUITY OF URBAN SPACE
PORTFOLIO
XU YANG PROJECT 2, BERLIN
1.BACKGROUND The project is located in Mehringplatz Berlin which is a place with two extreme positions. We can see both urban structure and suburban structure in this area. Mehringplatz was destroyed by the Second World War. In the 1960s Mehringplatz was redeveloped as a pedestrian zone located at the centre of a largesocial housing area according to a Hans Scharoun conception, which was ultimately executed by the Berlin architect Werner Düttmann.
Through analysis of the Mehringplatz potentials, we aim to bring it to be an urban place which has more vitality, considering the uses of people from nearby and outside of Mehringplatz. Focusing in the physical shape of the space, the project superposes different layers of landscape, works with different forms of continuities and connections.
MEHRINGPLATZ
2.METHODOLOGY Subjective mapping Physical mapping Social mapping MAPPING
This is the main method during the process of site surveying. We get a lot of useful information by different ways of walking such as dérive, perimeter and following. WALKING
REMOTE SOURCING
We draw our serial mapping by telling 2 stories about 2 different stakeholders. Aimming to tell the strong relevance between strategies and stakeholders.
INTERVIEWING
SITE INVESTIGATION
PREVIOUS PLAN
NOTE TAKING To record the subjective feeling and some elements can not be seen by observing. PHOTOGRAPHY A general and directly way to keep evidence when experience the site
COLLECTING TRACES
CITY MODEL
STORY TELLING
POSITION MAPPING
SKETCHING To assist story telling, we reproduce the whole story by comic skectching. Through the sketch we get more understanding about the Mehringplatz.
"Try to pick up general traces of use such as increased wearing in path or hand-rails or dirtier corners or worn out grass or we can pick specific type of artifact to collect such as discarded cigarette packets in a range of foreign languages or filler from events and graffiti.”(Matthew Carmona, 2014)
DETAIL MODEL
MODELS MAKING
SECTION MODEL
3.POSITION LIMITATION
POTENTIAL
The square is not very inviting that it make this place like a end of continuity. And now there is a construction on the square which keep people out of the square.
There are several green space for residents to enjoy there spare time. And they are key points to link south and north.
This important entrance lack of vitality and the building here block the visual continuity.
This street is very important and busy to link this area. Moreover, there are several street markets happened every week.
There are some shops located at the ground floor of the larger circle which can be considered to attract people to come into Mehringplatz.
It seems that no one would like to stop and spend their time at these two green space. They are more likely space for pedestrian to go across.
The ground floor around the square are opened but not in use nowadays. The river, Uban and main street become a natural barrier between the site and library. It is a problem to invite people from the south to Mehringplatz.
SPACE CONTINUITY
Permanent structure Reference: Parque da Juventude, São Paulo (Rosa Grena Kliass Arquitetura Paisagismo)
Reference: Superkilen urban spaces, Copenhagen (BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group)
Temporary structure Reference: Kitchen Monument, Berlin (Raumlabor)
Reference: collective benches, São Paulo (Lina Bo Bardi)
Pavement
Reference: Citizen Park, Zinhua
PRECEDENT To achieve the notion about continuity, we studied several cases from three different aspects: Pavement, Permanent structure and Temporary structure.
4.CONTEXT & ANALYSIS HISTORY TIMELINE Berlin wall 1902 Hallesche-Tor-Brücke and U-Bahn
1
1940
2
1953
1989
2001
2015
1705 first bridge is built where today is Hallesche-Tor-Brücke 1815 Belle-Alliance-Platz “Rondel” was renamed to “Belle-Aliance-Platz” 1843 erection of “Friedensäule” 1874 construction of the stone bridge, similar to the actual one
1946 1959-62 Belle-Aliance-Platz Competition to rebuild renamed to “FranzMehringplatz won by Hans Mehring-Platz” Scharoun 1930 1947 1974 Opening of the Name shortened Belle-Alliance-Brücke has U6 U-Bahn’s line in its name changed to to “Mehringplatz” Hallescher Tor Hallesche-Tor-Brücke
1901 Opening of the first U-Bahn’s line: U1 (incl. Hallescher Tor)
2
1
1800
1900
1910
Mehringplatz
1949 Hallesche-Tor-Brücke was reformed after severe damage in 1945
1920
1930
1914-18 World War I
1933 Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany
1940
1950 1939-45 World War II
2005 Mehringplatz entered in the Quartiersmanagement program 2003 40% of Galilei Primary School’s children went to Gymnasium 1999 Start of the program “Socially Integrative City” in Berlin 3
1960
1970
1980
1990 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall
2015 Competition to design free spaces in Mehringplatz
2006 30% of Galilei Primary School’s children went to Gymnasium
2016
4
2000
2014-2020 Investments from EFRE in Berlin
5
2010
2015
2011-14 Egyptian crisis 2011-present Syrian civil war
2020
ACTIVITY TIMELINE
sunset Muslim pray 6.00 pm
street market
b
mn
Quartiersmanagement available for appointments (different times)
Sum
n
Jumu’ah
y
Ju
6.00 am - 5.00 pm 12.00 pm Kindergarten 2.00 pm Muslim pray Muslim pray
Ma
p
Se
Sommer school vacations
Kinderkarneval der Kulturen
Apr
Jul
7.30 am - 1.30 pm Primary school
Thursday
Oct
Oktoberfest
Wednesday
r
Ma
v
Muslim’s New Year in 2015 and 2016 Friday
10.00 am - 8.00 pm Jewish Museum
No
ing
before sunshine Muslim pray 6.00 am
Tuesday
Spr
Saturday
ter
Au g
2h after sunset Muslim pray
Chinese’s New Year in 2015 and 2016
Win
Counseling hour in Seniortreffpunkt
c
4.06 am First U-Bahn in Hallescher Tor
Monday
Au tu
Sunday
De
12.00 am
Christian’s Christmas New Year
Jewish Museum is open everyday
12.46 am Last U-Bahn in Hallescher Tor 7.00 am - 10.00 pm Kaiser’s Supermarket
street market
Fe
almost all stores close
Jan
12.30 am Beginning of night buses
Karneval der Kulturen
me
r
Ramadan in 2015 and 2016
TRANSPORT CONTINUITY Ausländerbehörde
Tegel Airport
Reinickendorfer Str.
Berlin Foreigners Registration Office
city’s main intl. airport
8 min
13
Friedrichstr.
m
Police station
5 min 17 min
in
Bürgersamt airport for budget European flights
citizen centre
13 min
Oberschule
integrated secondary school
m 34 min
in
Schönefeld Airport
m
Berliner Brückentour
13
Tempelhof
MEHRINGPLATZ 5 min
The 3 hour bridge tour on the Spree and Landwehr canal
15 min
Primary school 6 min
Warschauer Straße 3 min
5
Hallesches Tor
Ostkreuz
11 min 7 min
MEHRINGPLATZ
Baerwaldbrücke
Kindergarten
Hallesches Tor
13 min
3 min
10 min
in
3 min
3 min
m 10
Alexanderplatz Stadtmitte
m
3 min 7 m in
3
Westkreuz
Potsdamer Platz
Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten
6 min
± 7 min
10 min
Friedrichstr.
2 min
in
berlin central station
in
Hauptbahnhof
Tempelhof Park
Prinzenstr.
3 min
Public Swimming Pool
Warschauer Straße
Mosque
RELATIONSHIP & FUNDING ANALYSIS
EFS Europäischen Sozialfonds
€ 635 M Network fund € 3.25 M min. € 50,000 per project
€ 215 M
Quartiersfund €17 M
City of Berlin
Project fund € 6.62 M projects between
€ 5,000 and € 50,000 Building fund € 6.79 M
Bundesregierung German Federal State
Senate Department for Urban Development and Enviroment
min. € 50,000 per project Soziale Stadt
Actions fund € 340 K
max. € 1,500 per project
cooperation?
European Union
EFRE European Regional Development Fund
cooperation?
max. € 1,500 per project
Quartiersmanagement Mehringplatz
Sanierungsgebiet Südliche Friedrichstadt coo
rde
esc 1 : 10,000
Small projects
max. € 1,500 per project
Proposal of Kreativquartier Südliche Friedrichstadt
nat
ion
Neighbourhood jury n
tio bera
Strategies’ overlapping
Belin Mitte Pulsierendes Zentrum
deli
GEWOBAG
main real-state company in Mehringplatz Joint-stock company
VISUAL & PHYSICAL CONTINUITY
Safe continuity
Physical continuity Visual continuity
DAYTIME NIGHT CCTV Element Light Element
Landscape continuity
HINT?
Stakeholder 1
Young family with Arabic/ Turkish background public transportation
Families with low income, but very attached to the respectively community. Some integration’s problems with other social groups due language, cultural differences and bias. Men use the public space for meetings and casual conversation with other men.
Jewish museum walking
checkpoint Charlie
Women use the street mainly as circulation path, but have an intricate network within the neighbourhood’s community. Children are the linking point between their former culture and the German traditions.
hostel
restaurants and cafés
public transportation
street market walking Kaiser’s
bicycle
mosque neighbourhood meeting
primary school
kindergarden playgrounds
Staying for the city for some days and not the highest budget to travel, Kreuzberg presents affordable options to stay, eat and go out. It has also many well-known touristic sightseeings and regular celebrations (Karnaval der Kulturen).
Bürgeramt
Stakeholder 2
Young foreign visitor
6.STRATEGY FOR 2016
PERMANENT STRUCTURE
PAVEMENT
Temporary structures
Permanent structures
Pavement
Greenspaces
Everyday of discontinuities
Bridges, Greenhouses and Flexible spaces
Continuous walking Pavement guiding continuity
Continuity of green areas
Open air cinema FURNITURE
Amphitheater Workshop spaces
Greenhouses
Bridges
STRATEGY IN CITY SCALE
Two axes are emphasized: North-South (transpassing the river and connecting the center with the city outside the baroque walls) and West-East (through a linear park attached to an existing green spaces’ system).
CITY MODEL North - South axis
This is the end point of Mehringplatz's pavement but the continuity is not stop here. This is more likely a attractive point for people from north to come into Mehringplatz.
Pavement
Bicycle path
Stairs Linking bridge Pavement here break the strong barrier between library and Mehringplatz. It takes more potential vitality from the south into site.
East - West axis
Greenspace
Library Uban station
Bicycle path
Green space
Pavement
Permanent structure
STRATEGY IN NEIGHBOURHOOD SCALE SECTION MODEL Pavement linking the library Viewing balcony
The section model shows more detailed information about our proposals at the site, including our design of the pavement (as the yellow part shows), commercial area and the permanent structures, such as the foot-bridge in the green space and the amphitheater in the square.
Yellow pavement to guide people
Greenspace for residents Change to commercial use & change the material into glass to make sure the visual continuity
Remain residential use Old commercial area
Permanent structure Foot bridge
First floor New commercial area As we change the ground floor to commercial use, it can attract people to go along the circle street and help renew the old shops
Stairs & Rest platform
STRATEGY IN NEIGHBOURHOOD SCALE SECTION MODEL
People on the first floor have wide view and good sightseeing
Pavement guide people to go into square or walk along the commercial street
The linking bridge link to green space and attract people from the other side to go into commercial area and invite them to Mehringplatz
CONTINUITY & CONNECTION DETAIL MODEL
CONTINUITY OF PERMANENT STRUCTURE
Pavement across the road
Permanent structure link to foot bridge
raised crosswalk
Pavement link to commercial street
Bicycle path d ise a r
k al w s os cr
CONTINUITY OF PAVEMENT
SITE OF DETAIL MODEL
The detail model is mainly to show the relationship between permanent structure and pavement. Moreover, we test two main stakeholders engaging with Mehringplatz.
Rest stairs link to square
We design the raised crosswalk to slow down the cars and the yellow pavement can easily invite people to go across the river to Mehringplatz.
Pavement link to Square
The other side of the model is going to show the relationship between commercial area and our permanent structure which is in red. And under the stairs there is plenty of free space we are going to full use them and give some temporary furniture for several uses. Visitors can re-organize the structure and use for rest.
Shops
Temporary urban furniture
7.REFLECTION SITE EXPLORATION The site exploration in Berlin took place during 15 February and 19 February for 5 days. Before departure we have prepared for plenty previous works to make sure that we can get enough useful information there. We draw up a plan for everyday we spent in Berlin. Things we prepared include different maps with different information, a shared Google map within group and clear methodology we are going to use. It is really effective that we study some online literature and make a plan in advance. During the days we were exploring Mehringplatz, I found that plan always more perfect than fact. We had to spend more time to finish our tasks. However, we gained large amount of information for further design. Different from the project last semester which we had to design from afar, this time we explored more useful information which can not be seen on internet or Google map. After returning from Berlin, the first thing we did is to classify mapping and photographs into different groups, such as human activities, building styles and source collecting. This gave us clear review about Mehringplatz.
IDEA OF CONTINUITY After analyzing the data we collected, we come out the idea of continuity. We discuss for a lot of times about the clear idea about continuity and how to benefit it with key stakeholders. We finally reached an agreement that continuity are not only about the physical space but also about the activities and social relationship. We try to cover all aspects but we failed because of the time consuming. So we go back to focus more on physical continuity and do all we can to create continued and flexible space for residents and visitors. To solve the modernist housing problem in Mehringplatz, we believe that this place need to renew and bring vitality into it. So we try to “open� the square to more public and focus on visual and physical continuity. We aim to bring it to be an urban place which has more vitality, considering the uses of people from nearby and outside of Mehringplatz. I think we have achieve a lot of continuity on physical aspect.
NARRATIVE STORY We try to link our design with two key stakeholders by delivering two narrative story. We assumed a family and a visitor to start their stories with our position mapping. Through their eyes we consider the position of Mehringplatz in the perspective of local people instead of urban designer. We experience the current situation of Mehringplatz by two kind of stakeholders and sketch the pictures to help ourselves continue with our design. After all, we describe our design strategy by the eyes of their children who would come back to this place after 20 years later. I think it was a brave attempt that I have never done before and it makes our orderliness quite clear and reasonable.
MODEL MAKING The strongest thing of the model I think is the unification of colors and material. We change several times about the material and colors and not very satisfied with them at the beginning of model making. After receiving the feedback from professor we understand that we need to be very careful with the using of color and material. they are architecture language in our model, if we use same color or material that means they have same or similar meaning. So we simplified our model into few material and two main colors. Moreover, it is important to make our design prominent because we need to catch audience eyes when they first saw the model. We got rid of the useless part of model and make them simple such as white hard card and give strong and bright color to our design part. It bring notable results that we have clear strategies on our model and they are easy to understand by others.
Strong link by same color
However, we still weak on representing our idea on models. We spend too much time on city model and section model which lead to had short discussion with detail model. According to our agreement, I nearly finished the detail model by myself on the last week. I think we would have more time to do further work with our detail model.
CITY MODEL We change 3 different expression about our city model. Finally we all satisfied with our final version. We cut down some useless buildings around our site and keep some key points to emphasize our strategy on city scale. For the things could be improve, I believe It would be better if we can show East - West axis more clearly.
SECITON MODEL The section model took us too much time to do because of our misunderstanding. We paid too much time on landscape making for a week. And we made the section model too colorful and lose our points of strategy. So we change the model to only 2 main colors and each of them has only one function. It became more clear to read. The visual and physical continuity can be seen clearly on this model which I think is successful.
DETAIL MODEL The detail model we tried to show the abstract link between our pavement strategy and permanent structure strategy. Moreover, we expect to represent some detailed and hiding things on detail model. We explain the temporary structure under the stairs and the different use of shops. But I think they are still too weak to show on the model without drawing. We should have paid more time on detail model to make more context.