ADEPT to design new Flensburg city gate in German-Danish border

ADEPT from Copenhagen was recently selected as the 1st-prize winner to design a new urban development in the Bahnhofstrasse of Flensburg. Described as a "small piece of city", ADEPT's proposal for the urban development outwardly expresses its mixed use programming through different brick patterns. According to the architects, the brickwork reflects the neighborhood's distinct character while nodding to the town's historical brick buildings.

Project description:

"The proposal was designed as ‘a small piece of city’ adapting itself to the existing building structure by creating playful synergy between new and old. By combining different types of dwellings with different facade expressions, the project celebrates diversity and creates a human scale that meets the unique character of the local neighbourhood with its historical brick buildings."

"ADEPT has created a design that embraces the different programmatic typologies of apartments, office, row houses, kindergarten and shops in one extremely diverse urban development. The mix of typologies in the new building interprets the characteristics of Flensburg with its traditional buildings, robust materials and a coherent colour scheme, and translate it into a diverse buildi ng volume that divides both horizontally and vertically into a literally three-dimensional building."

"By offering a large variety of different functions and dwelling types, the Bahnhofstrasse proposal achieves a large variation in inhabitants and qualities. Each programmatic typology is highlighted separately within the overall building structure to make each more individually visible in the urban context.

Along the ground floor, large apartments and 2-floor duplex apartments span across the building with private green areas on both sides. This strategy handles privacy issues on the ground floor and attracts families to the central city. ‘A small piece of city’ supports diversity further through a diverse programming of the attractive green spaces in the courtyard and the edge condition along the street."

"Red brick connects the buildings thematically, engaging the new building in a dialogue with the materiality of the more monumental buildings along Bahnhofstraße. The design allocate the different functions and apartment types an individual brick pattern within the overall theme. The materiality creates a coherent architectural expression establishing the grand urban scale underlining the new Bahnhofstrasse building as one of the central arrivals to the city.

The diverse brickwork, inspired from the surrounding details of historical buildings, creates variation and human scale through different bonds, tones of color, alternating windows and balconies."

"Furthermore, small differences in depth of the different functions supports the three-dimensional variation of the overall building. The cubical shapes and the setbacks of the building structure interacts with both the newer buildings and the older brick building along Bahnhofstrasse.

'The proposal gives us a unique chance to transform and influence our future city at a very high level of quality and creativity,' the project's client SBV elaborates. 'Bahnhofstrasse can really become a real and vibrant piece of city.'"

Project details:

Project: Bahnhofstrasse
Address: Bahnhofstrasse/Munketoft, Flensburg, Germany
Architect: ADEPT
Engineer: Grontmij Germany
Client: SBV
Area: 16.700 m2
Budget: 15 mill. Euro
Year: 2015-2019

All images courtesy of ADEPT.