Lambertz Quarter, Würselen (DE)
New building,
Affordable housing,
Neighbourhood Development
Client: Ministry of Homeland, Municipal Affairs, Building and Gender Equality of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MHKBG)
Architecture: Dietrich Untertrifaller
Competition: 2022, 4. prize
Area: 40,000 m²
Programme: subsidised (30%) and privately financed flats, single-family homes, Lambertz office building, 3-group daycare centre, underground car parks
Visualisations: Dietrich Untertrifaller
Team
Fredi Botz, Nina Burri, Johannes Krüger, Julia Schmid, Annkathrin Schumpe, Michael Sohm
Text: Gerlinde Jüttner
Partners
Landscape: Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl, Ueberlingen
Sustainable housing on industrial wasteland
The exciting task of the competition was to find exemplary solutions on how brownfield sites can be developed into sustainable and future-proof residential neighbourhoods. What does a future-proof urban neighbourhood look like? Climate-neutral, sustainable, concise, dense, diverse, flexible and – very importantly – linked to the identity of the location.
Our design reinterprets the characteristic Rhineland street village: a closed development with eaves lines the existing and new residential street. A "green vein" as a cycle and footpath links all areas and the extensive meadows and fields. At the intersection with the new street, the neighbourhood square will serve as an urban meeting point.
The semi-public block interiors are a place to play and spend time, provide space for rainwater management, offer room for community initiatives and are thus a first place of identification for residents and visitors. The gardens on the neighbourhood square and on Dorfstraße are also special places.
Street house, living shelf, point and detached house
Traditional building typologies were used to create a lively, mature atmosphere: those of the square courtyard, the street house with eaves, the apartment blocks set back from the street and the semi-detached houses. The result is a field of tension between the compact street space and the loose development behind it – between urbanity and rurality.
The street house with a pitched roof forms the main typology along the closed streets. The most flexible typology is the residential shelf: innovative forms of housing with an upstream structure that can be used for access and as a freely designable outdoor area. The point house is a free-standing building in the courtyard ensemble. The 2- or 3-storey family homes embody a modern version of the terraced house.
Circular timber construction
The natural building material wood forms a temporary buffer for carbon dioxide. In the Lambertz quarter, we are therefore planning adaptable buildings that are assembled from prefabricated timber modules. Individual components that can be dismantled and reassembled into new, modified objects. The result is buildings that are recyclable – in line with the cradle-to-cradle principle, which is already taken into account in the early planning stages.
