Competitive dialogue

Through an intensive dialogue between city officials, international planning firms, and the public, ideas for the urban and open-space design of the new Grasbrook neighborhood were developed in 2019 and 2020. The “competitive dialogue” process made it possible to incorporate the public’s ideas and feedback at every stage.

The planning teams made proposals on how the various uses, such as parks, squares and street spaces, residential and commercial buildings as well as social facilities, could be distributed in Grasbrook. A central task for the participating offices was also to connect Grasbrook and the neighboring Veddel to form a common urban space. To this end, numerous public planning workshops were held with residents and stakeholders from Veddel as well as from the neighboring districts of Wilhelmsburg, Rothenburgsort and HafenCity. Many ideas from the population were considered in the concretization of the plans – from the preservation of identity-forming places and the creation of attractive connections to neighborhood meeting points and joint offers.

Urban development and open space on equal terms

The competitive dialogue was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, 12 renowned planning offices from Germany and Europe took part – six offices each for urban design and for open space planning. Three offices each were selected for the second phase of the competition and brought together in mixed teams. This ensured that urban planning and open space planning were considered together from the outset and that open space became an equally important part of the concept.

The design process for the new neighborhood concluded on April 3, 2020, with the second and final jury meeting. The winning design by the team of Herzog & de Meuron and Vogt Landschaftsarchitekten as the basis for developing the detailed functional and open space planning.

Video archive competition

The three award-winning designs

The jury, made up of representatives from various disciplines and political representatives and chaired by Prof. Matthias Sauerbruch (sauerbruchhutton), awarded the following prizes: