The Terraventure workshop in Luxembourg tested thesis ideas in an urban context.
This small city (population c. 80,000) has a long and illustrious history as a powerful fortress and trade centre in Europe. Given its location between Frankfurt, Brussels, Paris and other large European centres the city is in a naturally beneficial geographical position. The country’s borders are very close to the city leading to the strange situation of a large commuting population working by day in Luxembourg and living in France, Belgium and Germany by night. These workers cannot afford to live in Luxembourg due to a generally high cost of living and elevated property prices.
In the next ten years however the resident population of the city is expected to grow by 100% as the government makes a concerted effort to reduce reliance on dormitory labour. This projected growth presents a huge challenge to the city. It will need to accommodate a huge explosion in population while maintaining the character and qualities which the city currently possesses.
Recent patterns of development have led to an erosion of the fabric of the city. Much living accommodation is now suburban, leaving the city centre struggling as a shopping precinct, devoid of life. This workshop investigated the expansion of the city by densification. The area subject to this investigation was Hollerich.
This dying industrial area grew up adjacent to the railway lines which link the city to Brussels, Frankfurt, Paris and the wider European rail network. This area was once home to most of the cities industrial base but this has been eroded in recent years, the main remaining industry being a large Tobacco factory. The intentions for this project were to investigate how a building can have reparative properties for an area, restoring and enhancing the system of movement and settlement in the city.
Hollerich is an area of contrasts. The large industrial areas contrast with much more intimate urban streets in very close proximity. The area represents a barrier in the city. Here the permeability of the city breaks down. The urban pattern of the city is unable to penetrate the area, the network of streets and spaces becoming impassable as the city approaches the railway tracks.
These railway tracks represent an edge across which the city cannot cross and even approach, making Hollerich an island, cut off from the suburbs further south and unable to integrate with the city to the north. This project aimed to repair this scar in the city, stitching the southern side of the tracks back into the Northern side.This was achieved with a folded landscape structure which spanned over the tracks. Thebuilding folded and unfolded to provide alternately public and private space.The rooftop became a public park which moved across the tracks. Beneath this was private housing which took advantage of the folds in the structure. This was a reinterpretation of the complexity of space found in medieval cities like Luxembourg, where the boundaries of the publicrealm are well defined but constantly shifting and overlapping with those of the private realm.
