Wohnen in Berlin (5) - Mauerpark & Beyond [Studio]
Kursbeschreibung
Teaching
Berlin is growing (again). 50.000 inhabitants each year since 2011, and the dynamic is expected to linger. Empty apartments won’t cover for the bump this time. New flats need to be provided. Quite many, actually. What typologies should be introduced? At what cost and for whom? At stake, the conditions that have made Berlin attractive for years: cheap rents, abundant space, socially and culturally diverse neighbourhoods… Less discussed is the question of Berlin’s urban model in the wake of a future construction wave. Will it remain this unique system of fragments as we know it, surrounded with green and open spaces?
By looking at Mauerpark and its surroundings (including the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark and the Brunnenviertel), we would like to explore all these dimensions at once. Here a conflict happens to oppose a private investor willing to build up the northern fringes of the park, to the tenants of “100% Mauerpark“. Is it possible to imagine alternative densification models that combine the benefits of quantity, diversity and the intensification of Berlin’s open spaces? To overturn the perspective of a city entirely in private hands through new cooperative housing prototypes? To go complex and hybrid, where current plans meet neither the specific character of Mauerpark nor its metropolitan dimension?
(fig: Mauerpark & surroundings, source Google Maps)