The city of Halle (Saxony-Anhalt), in common with other cities of the former German Democratic Republic, suffered a dramatic decline in population after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Riebeckplatz, its main point of arrival, is a large elevated roundabout where a system of motorways built in the 1960s converges, dividing the space into residual fragments without the capacity to generate urban life. The absence of inhabitants in a large part of the surrounding buildings, which have been left abandoned, has contributed to the fact that Riebeckplatz is completely dominated by the highway infrastructure.
Accepting that in the current situation any battle between the car and the pedestrian is destined to be lost by the latter, a hybrid space is proposed that allows the two to coexist, at the same time giving a coherent image that with the minimum resources Riebeckplatz recovers as a gateway to the city,
The proposal creates a welcoming forest to Halle with the planting of local trees in bands that transform this harsh environment into a large parking lot – landscape. The trees are arranged in a fluffy grid that allows other types of appropriations of the space under the trees to appear in their interstices. such as areas for sports, outdoor shows or street markets. The use of the urban forest can be modified from time to time in a very flexible way, regulating the parking spaces according to the events that are scheduled. It is also proposed to temporarily cover the facades of the two iconic tall buildings located on both sides of the roundabout, which were abandoned at the time of the competition, as a vertical garden waiting for them to be reused in the future.
The work with the local authorities after the competition focused on the implementation of the strategy over time, depending on the availability of the different sites around Riebeckplatz
Project type : Competition
Location : Halle, Saxony-Anhalt (Germany)
Team : Xavier Ortiz and Eugènia Vidal
Area: 18.4 Hectares
Competition year : 2006
Post competition design : 2007-8
Motto : Urban Forest
Result : First prize
