1st prize: Prof. Dr. Franz Pesch, chairman of the jury of the Rosenstein urban planning competition, Jochen Koeber, Cem Arat and Markus Weismann from the asp Architekten/Koeber Landschaftsarchitektur consortium, Lord Mayor Fritz Kuhn and Peter Pätzold, Mayor for Urban Development, Housing and the Environment, (from left to right) stand by the model of the winning design. Photo: Max Kovalenko/City of Stuttgart

A report from the LHS

Stuttgart consortium ASP Architekten/Koeber Landschaftsarchitektur wins international urban planning competition Rosenstein of the state capital Stuttgart

The design of the offices ASP Architekten/Koeber Landschaftsarchitektur (Stuttgart) has won first place after the decision of the jury of the international open urban planning competition Rosenstein on Monday evening, April 8. The second place went to the planning office Laux Architekten in cooperation with Terra Nova Landschaftsarchitektur (Stuttgart/Munich). This is associated with prize money of 70,0000 euros for first place and 50,000 euros for second place.

Third place went to the joint venture Herrmann + Hornung/Johannes Jörg Grüne Welle Landschaftsarchitektur (Stuttgart). Fourth place out of a total of eleven evaluated works went to the joint venture Tovatt Architects & Planners/Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl (Sweden/Überlingen). This is associated with prize money of 35,000 euros for third place and 20,000 euros for fourth place.

Mayor Fritz Kuhn said: "The selection of the winning designs is important for the prospects of urban development. We all now have an idea of what the Rosenstein Quarter could look like. Exciting things can be created here, on up to 100 hectares and in the middle of the city. The quarter will have a good mix of high density and green open spaces. I particularly like the winners' integration of cultural institutions into the quarter."

"The neighborhoods on the Rosenstein development site should grow together: our idea is that they are lively, mixed and attractive, simply not a retort city. The first-placed offices have designed this well," added Peter Pätzold, Mayor for Urban Planning, Housing and Environment. "The results of the revision are to be evaluated by the Rosenstein jury before the summer vacations, so that the jury can then make its recommendation to the municipal council for a decision."

The jury, chaired by Prof. Dr. Franz Pesch of Pesch und Partner, recommended after a full-day session in the Wagenhallen that the designs for squares one and two should first be further revised before an overall concept can be drawn up in consultation with the municipal bodies.

Prof. Dr. Franz Pesch said: "The Rosenstein development area as a whole has different qualities and the highest demands in terms of climate, mobility and energy. With the tender, the city of Stuttgart has set the bar very high. The decisive question is, what does a future-oriented quarter look like in terms of urban development? Does it pick up on historical models or does it dare to do something completely new? The award winners provide initial answers to this question. We have asked both planning offices to revise their designs again."

All eleven entries from the second phase of the competition will be on display for the public at StadtPalais from April 11, 12:00 noon to April 18, 5:00 pm.

The jury justified its decision on the first and second place entries as follows:

The first-place design succeeds convincingly in linking the new quarters to the existing urban areas with spatial structures and building typologies that are strongly based on the existing buildings. The main urban axes and street spaces are taken up and coherently structure the new building areas. Four different quarters with a recognizable atmosphere and a scale derived from the context are created, connected by the track arch that has been converted into a park.

A special element is the Gleisbogenpark, which connects the entire area with a central bike path, exercise areas, and social and cultural facilities. It leads to the planned concert hall on Wolframstrasse and integrates the overpass structure, which will be enlivened with cultural uses. As a "Green Belt" and as a relic of traffic construction history, the track arch can be experienced very well - all important parts of the monument will be preserved.

All quarters are intended to be mixed-use, with a focus on commercial use in the first floor zones and residential use on the standard floors. Block edge typologies are grouped coherently around a small public square, which is accentuated in each case by a neighborhood hub as a solitary building. In addition to parking spaces, the hub also houses social infrastructure facilities. Overall, a functioning mobility concept is offered.

However, according to the jury, the following topics still need to be specified: The handling of the park edge was not yet convincing, nor was the size and location of the school campus. The residential and open space function as well as the qualities of the track curve also need to be worked out more clearly.

The design of the runners-up formulates four very differently shaped quarters that dock onto a bicycle expressway, the "Super-Cycle-Highway" along the park edge of the central Schlossgarten. The prelude begins at the future Manfred Rommel Square at the cleverly placed Congress and Concert Hall and leads diagonally through the Europaviertel in the direction of Felix-Mendelssohn-Allee into the Schlossgarten. The mobility concept shows a creative and forward-looking range of car-free neighborhoods, a pronounced sharing culture and digitalization.

Adjacent to the Europaviertel, the authors succeed in finding a convincing answer to its large-scale development by means of many crossing possibilities to the Schlossgarten. The actual Rosenstein quarter at the ground level transition to Mittnachtstraße is seen as a detached, geometrically clearly defined "future quarter" and counterpoint to traditional Stuttgart residential quarters. In high density, it is characterized by smaller-scale point structures and by high-rise residential buildings up to 90 meters high. The overall above-average floor area of the design is based on this development section. The jury appreciated the courage to create new neighborhood forms, but at the same time controversially discussed a concrete implementation of the ideas. The proposed groves of trees in the transition to the Schlossgarten and Rosensteinpark are also an interesting open space element. The jury sees a need for improvement in the not yet convincing park closure and the required distance areas in the development.

The urban planning competition ended with the decision of the jury on Monday evening. The two first prize winners are to present their designs to the Environment and Technology Committee on April 30.

Two-phase urban planning competition

The "International open urban planning competition Rosenstein - Ideas for the new district" aimed to develop a vision of the future Rosenstein Quarter, which would then serve as the basis for all further urban planning. With the current result, an overall concept is available that forms the orientation framework in the long-term planning process in terms of urban planning, programmatic and process-related aspects in the development of the Rosenstein Quarter.

The competition announcement and the requirements formulated therein were drawn up by the administration and developed transparently together with citizens in an informal public participation process. On May 16, 2018, an information event with workshop character was held in the Stadtpalais. There, the Office for Urban Planning and Renewal and an external moderator first presented the text for the tender. This was followed by an intensive discussion with the participants, who were able to contribute further ideas on the text and suggestions for changes. In addition, interested parties had the opportunity to submit suggestions for changes to the draft text of the competition online on the city's participation portal "Stuttgart - meine Stadt" (Stuttgart - my city). All of the suggestions collected were then reviewed and, if necessary, incorporated into the award text. In addition, three members were nominated for the competition jury from the ranks of the "Forum Rosenstein", which was initiated in the course of the "Informal Citizen Participation Rosenstein" in 2016. These members participated as experts in the formation of opinion in the jury, but were not entitled to vote.

After the conclusion of public participation, the competition text was taken to the detailed preliminary deliberations of the municipal bodies and discussed. This process formed the basis for the entire competition procedure.

The competition consisted of two phases. In the first phase of the competition, a future image for the Rosenstein Quarter was developed.
A total of 54 planning offices took part in the Europe-wide competition. On July 27, 2018, many of them took the opportunity to put questions to the city planners of the state capital at a question-and-answer colloquium. Then, on November 28, 2018, the competition's jury, chaired by Prof. Dr. Franz Pesch, selected eleven works for further processing in phase two. This marked the end of the first phase of the competition. The final decision as to which planning office won the competition with its design was made by the jury on April 8.

Informal citizen participation Rosenstein 2016

Together with the citizens, the state capital had already discussed the future of the Rosenstein development area in 2016 and before the start of the urban planning competition in 2018. At that time, the city's central concern was to conduct a city-wide informal participation and dialog process on the development of the future Rosenstein district and to develop a result that was accepted as broadly as possible. The findings from the citizen participation of 2016 were summarized in a memorandum.

The memorandum consists of a collection of interests, a catalog of criteria derived from this, and concrete guard rails. It also includes the results of the children's participation and the expert panel. It served as the basis for the now completed international open urban planning competition Rosenstein.

The Rosenstein development area

In the triangle between the main station, the Neckar River and the Pragtunnel, around 85 hectares of land will no longer be needed for rail operations after Stuttgart 21 goes into operation. The track areas that will become available will form the core of a future urban district, the Rosenstein Quarter, as the so-called Rosenstein development area. They extend between the main train station in the south, the northern train station district and Presselstrasse in the west, Rosenstein Park in the north and Schlosspark in the east. The area is located in the north of Stuttgart's city center, on the border between the districts of Stuttgart North, Stuttgart East and Bad Cannstatt. At the same time, it borders the important landscape areas of the Neckar Valley and the "Green Us", consisting of Höhenpark Killesberg, Rosensteinpark and Schlossgarten, over a length of about three kilometers.

A new district

However, the future district includes not only the Rosenstein development area, but also the adjacent areas. The development of the former track areas will have an impact on the neighborhood, which is why a larger area must be considered. At the same time, the development areas must also grow together with their neighborhood to form a vital building block of the city and create a neighborhood that creates identity.

In the future, this district will benefit above all from its special location. For example, from the center of the Rosenstein development area, the central public facilities, such as the main train station, can be reached on foot in 12 to 15 minutes. Schlosspark and Rosensteinpark are in the immediate vicinity, and the Neckar River is only a few minutes away. The development areas also play an important role when it comes to linking the northern and eastern districts of the city, which were previously separated by the railroad tracks.

Topography

Located at the bottom of the valley, the topography of the area, although almost flat in large parts, is characterized by significant terrain variations. These partly act as barriers, but also represent identification features. Particularly striking is the so-called Stuttgart track arch, which surrounds the Nordbahnhofviertel mainly as a railroad embankment, supplemented by bridge and overpass structures.

Ownership

In order to be able to influence the future development of the derelict track areas, the city already acquired the Rosenstein development area and other areas - a total of 120 hectares - from Deutsche Bahn AG in December 2001. In contrast to the Europaviertel, the city of Stuttgart is thus the owner of the development area, which gives it a great deal of creative freedom and offers extremely favorable conditions for the implementation of the planning goals.