Columbia Quartier

A participatory instrument enabling a process-based development

Prior to our Tempelhof Airport win we already won first prize with CHORA and Joost Grootens for an urban ideas’ competition for the Columbia Quarter. The design focused on low energy structures, green energy producing systems and smart networks, creating a symbol of hope and renewal for the city. At the core of the proposal is a participatory instrument enabling residents and other stakeholders to creatively negotiate a process-based development. The process is illustrated with three dynamic phases including practical design steps that create access to the whole site, the development of new city quarter within the context of an international building exhibition IIBA) and new types of experimental landscape where technologies and nature merge. The result is radical: an economic, social, cultural and political context to turn a whole area into an alternative powerplant. Tempelhof becomes a communal space which connects people, supplies renewable energy for the adjacent districts and implements the goal of the German Government to lower C02 emissions. In short, an Energy Incubator.

After a first round with 80 proposals, 12 projects were chosen for the second phase of the competition. Three of them received the final prize.