Colboc Franzen & Associés' proposal for a mixed-use development in Munich

The practice Colboc Franzen & Associés presents its scheme, which was placed joint second last December alongside Baumschlager Eberle. The architects teamed up with the Berlin landscape architects Topotek 1 and the Bavarian engineers IB Hausladen. The brief combined social housing (13,000 m²), a cultural centre (14,000 m²) and private housing (5,000 m²) in the city of Munich. The winners are the Viennese practice Delugan Meissl ZT; among the other finalists in the competition were Auer + Weber + Assoziierte and Sauerbruch Hutton. © Colboc Franzen & Associés

The Hanns-Seidel-Platz project in Munich aims to transform a currently derelict site into a cultural and community hub serving the whole of the Neuperlach district. This competition concerns the northern part of the site, with a brief of 16,000 m² of usable floor area for a community centre, cultural centre, nursery and library, plus 13,000 m² of housing, part of it in a 60-metre landmark tower at the north-west corner of the site. A major challenge of the scheme lies in differentiating between the public and private green spaces, and in establishing a link with the multimodal interchange formed by the bus station and the Neuperlach Zentrum underground station.

The scheme breaks the various uses down into distinct, identifiable volumes. Their arrangement creates the desired opening onto Hanns-Seidel-Platz by widening the square into a hollow within the cultural building. The high-rise residential block overlooks the north-west corner, at the foot of which the transition between the public garden at the heart of the block and the underground station is handled by a gentle flight of steps and large voids at basement level. The stepped profile of the building heights creates a vertical continuity of gardens, with planted roofs on the community buildings and housing forming a terraced landscape. At ground level, the outdoor spaces move from a market square, through a public garden, to private courtyards reserved for residents.

The project is based on an approach of layers and sequences, both horizontally and vertically. This layering is accompanied by a west–east dynamic and makes it possible to organise a variety of superimposed uses while giving each function its own identity and ensuring gentle transitions between them.