Parchim „Weststadt“
Due to the planned deconstruction of vacant housing in the centre of the town, the "Green Centre" comes into being with its forest-like character. It is the central building block to ensure the residential function and the enhancement of Parchim's 'Weststadt' large housing estate.
Context
Source: raum + prozess
Parchim (population 19,000), with its medieval old town, is in the southwest of Mecklenburg-Western Pommerania, around 40km southeast of the federal state capital of Schwerin and 100km south of Rostock. The population decline in the city was 6.7% between 1994 and 2003. This trend is continuing.
The 'Weststadt' housing estate with its around 5,400 residents is on the urban fringe and is Parchim's largest prefabricated concrete block estate with its 50 hectares and almost 3,500 flats. It was built in an industrial five-storey style between 1968 and 1988 and was supplemented by new buildings after 1990. Two thirds of the housing stock belongs to the city housing association WOBAU. There is a high level of unoccupied housing (12.2% vacant, of which 10.5% is long-term vacant). Even the good location (with regard to access to open spaces, transport connections) and the implementation of various measures (privatisation of residential space, modernisation, improvement of the living environment, development of new shopping locations) have not been able to stop the loss of residents and could not stabilise the neighbourhood. The population of the 'Weststadt' district declined by 33% between 1994 and 2003.
Project description
Source: Stadtbauamt Parchim
Many conversion measures have already been implemented in this planning area corresponding to the urban development framework plan of 1996 for streets, courtyards and public open spaces.
Appropriate improvements were implemented up to the end of 2002 with money from the living environment programme. Furthermore, the housing associations have carried out modernisation and redevelopment work on the housing blocks. There has been deconstruction and demolition work regarding both the housing and the infrastructure. Nevertheless, the neighbourhood still has structural, functional and design shortcomings.
The 2004 update of the framework plan defines what is sensible to ensure the housing function in good quality surroundings as a medium-term orientation for many individual actions which cannot yet be specified in detail. This concerns the reduction of vacant flats while simultaneously enhancing sustainable stocks. The living environment improvements intended for this are accompanied by demolition and deconstruction and the erection of new housing and infrastructure. Thus, the deconstruction concept involves a reduction of the housing stock by 834 flats and also the deconstruction of streets up to the year 2010.
A "Green Centre" is coming into being on areas of the neighbourhood where residential buildings and infrastructure once stood or still stand. It improves the transition to the bordering landscape area and the green area quality in the estate.
Project chronology
Year | Event |
---|---|
1996 | Town representative resolution on framework plan "Weststadt - Improvement of the Living Environment" |
2002 | Integriertes Stadtentwicklungskonzept (ISEK) - Integrated Town Development Concept |
2004 | Update of the framework plan |
2004 | Open space concept "Green Centre" |
Aims
Source: raum + prozess
- Securing and stabilising the residential function through deconstruction and demolition in a good quality living environment
- Development to a sustainable urban district through urban redevelopment measures and improvements to the living environment
- Increasing the attractiveness, image and acceptance
- Long-term adaptation of the housing structure to the forecasted population trend
- Maintaining a broad range of simply redeveloped and affordable flats
- Ensuring a mixed social structure (families, young people, elderly and disabled people)
- Adaptation of the stock to the infrastructure and the changed situation
- Creating and enhancing urban landscape and green areas which are important to the town structure
Types of measures
Source: raum + prozess
- Determination of restructuring areas (Green Centre) in which no value-adding investments will take place due to coming demolition and restructuring works
- Unsealing and disuse of streets and restoring them corresponding to the open space concept (e.g. as public open areas in the Green Centre)
- Demolition of the primary and secondary schools and landscaping the new urban green areas as a transitional area between the Weststadt centre (functional and urban) and the Green Centre (open space) (not yet implemented)
- Demolition of the school sports hall on the grounds of the schools and reorganisation and landscaping of the new free areas (small sports facilities, such as a 60m track and a long-jump track) (in planning)
- Living environment improvements
Innovations
Source: raum + prozess
As part of the implementation of the Integrated Town Development Concept (ISEK) in Parchim, the landscaping of the Green Centre is a central building block for the enhancement of the Weststadt housing location. The deconstruction of the large housing estate is not taking place at the town fringe, as is often the case in other cities, but instead in the centre of the settlement. This gives the urban district new qualities in the form of a Green Centre.
Sources
- Urban development framework plan (2004)
- Böcker, Mone; Lindemann, Maik: Modellvorhaben und Referenzstädte: Städtebauliche Labors des Forschungsfeldes Stadtquartiere im Umbruch (Model plans and reference cities: urban development laboratory for the research project 'City Neighbourhoods in Transformation'). in: BMVBS / BBR: Stadtquartiere im Umbruch. Werkstatt: Praxis Heft 42, Bonn 2006
Further information
The projekt site ist to be found at postal code: 19370 - town: Parchim - street: Hans-Beimler-Straße 10.
Poject site on Google-Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/qgjsH4HiYe62
Last update: 20.09.2016