This is some text inside of a div block.
Client
Landeshauptstadt Kiel
Status
Study
Progress
2021
Size
320.000
m2
Due to their long-standingseclusion and extraordinary building, areas formerly used for military purposes often harbor potential, such as intact ecosystems and identity-forming buildings. In addition, these sites are often in special locations and in this combination offer unique opportunities that can be discovered and enhanced.
This is precisely what the competition process of the state capital of Kiel was about: a lively urban quarter was to be developed for the newly planned Holtenau Ost district, which would deal with the special spatial features of the former military area.
With the “Kieler Kante” design, the team from CROSS Architecture and Karres en Brands developed a new districton the Kiel Fjord that focuses not on infrastructure and buildings, but on ecosystems and open spaces. The architecture firm received recognition for its contribution.
One of the most important qualities of the site for the future identity of the new district - alongside the impressive coastal forest - lies in its former military use with its historic buildings, runways and diverse relics from the past. Kieler Kante is not a district that is being built from scratch, but the continuation of a careful reading of the site and its existing features.
The basic, urban strategy is to create waterfront communities in the form of four neighborhoods located within the district. Democratic access to the water is crucial here: the structure of Kieler Kante is designed so that individual waterways run through the neighborhoods. This means that almost every residential building has direct access to the water - an idea that increases the quality of life enormously and shapes the exchange within the neighborhoods.
Public squares also play an important role in the design. Existing buildings such as former barracks provide space for commercial areas, while the linear, strip-like structures of the existing runways of the former airport form a structure of public open spaces and green strips. They extend from the forest to the Kiel Fjord and connect water and nature.
“The Kieler Kante is something special for us as an architecture firm in that we were able to really think on a large scale here. It is very rare for such areas, which have been used for other purposes for many decades or even closed down, to become vacant and converted. The work for this urban design was so challenging because so many different disciplines had to be taken into account. Always in focus: the water and the consideration of how to make access to it accessible for all residents of the neighborhood.”
Landeshauptstadt Kiel
Competition, recognition
Karres en Brands
Vivid-Vision
Aniko Kren
