urban matters

Querkräfte 2009 – Urban Futures of TXL Airport, Berlin

Querkräfte 2009 – Urban Futures of TXL Airport, Berlin

In 2013 Berlin’s inner-city airport Tegel will be closed down. To test a variety of possible future developments the Senate Department for Urban Development set up a Cooperative Workshop Procedure in 2009. Six teams1 were commissioned to generate different, also contrary development perspectives for the site. Our project ‘Querkräfte’, seen and commissioned as the ‘Wildcard’, represents a special position within the Cooperative Workshop Procedure. It adopts a radical attitude by not only showcasing plausible options, but also future events with a relatively low probability of occurrence, but a likely high impact. The scenarios were presented as consistent stories from the future, combining interdisciplinary knowledge on global developments with an intense research on Berlin’s specific urban potentials and challenges. Altogether a total of 42 ideas were created that speak about new planning instruments, about testing fields, about new public institutions such as the Generation’s Parliament or Knowledge Hubs, or about alternative means of income for Berlin. Like that the study illustrates a planning paradigm that does not believe in a single best solution, but develops a range of optional futures for the former site of TXL Airport.
The project is ongoing. Since 2009 there have been two more workshop procedures in 2010 and 2012 to develop the study further. On the basis of these results the Senate Department for Urban Development is currently working on the building regulations (Bebauungsplan).
Authors: CITYFÖRSTER architecture + urbanism with jbbug – Johannes Böttger, büro urbane gestalt
Graphic Design: Anna Brinkmann

more information here:
http://www.cityfoerster.net/fileadmin/user_upload/Querkraefte_CITYFOERSTER_JBBUG.pdf

CITYFÖRSTER architecture + urbanism

CITYFÖRSTER architecture + urbanism was founded in 2005 as an international partnership of architects and urbanists. The team is lead by 11 partners with offices in Berlin, Hanover, London, Oslo, Rotterdam and Salerno. In adaptably compound teams personal competences and different contexts are complementary to develop comprehensive solutions according to the specific task.
CITYFÖRSTER deals with the city in all its dimensions and scales. We focus on the performative aspect of architecture and urban design: The matter of combining different parts to form integrative systems. Systems that exist due to the interaction of their parts – comparable to ecosystems.
Our projects are based on programmatic and process-orientated strategies. The main objective of our work is to contribute to a sustainable development of the build environment.
CITYFÖRSTER collaborates internationally and interdisciplinary with specialist consultants and experts from the fields of sustainable development, the creative economy, technology, and foresight research.