Transformation of the Braunschweig city centre Student competition for the Johannes Göderitz Prize for urban development decided

How can Braunschweig’s city centre be redesigned to make it more attractive? How can vacant buildings be used? What can the city offer beyond shopping? In this year’s competition for the Johannes Göderitz Prize, architecture students from five universities were invited to submit designs that would decisively change the image of the city centre and show sustainable perspectives. The award ceremony and exhibition opening will take place on 25 October at the Flebbe Haus in Braunschweig.

This year’s student competition focused on the transformation of Braunschweig’s city centre. This urban space is characterised by the city’s main shopping streets, the replica of the castle with a shopping centre and cultural institutions, the location of important public functions such as the town hall, the Higher Regional Court and Braunschweig Cathedral, as well as large-scale traffic structures. The task of the architecture students was to develop innovative and sustainable concepts for a programmatic and spatial reorganisation. The aim was to see the current problems of the city centre as an opportunity.

Current topic in urban politics

Yu Chen and Zhiyuan Jiang from Technische Universität Berlin received the first prize for their design “Urban production: the future of Braunschweig’s city centre”. Paul Gumpricht and Daniel Afriyie Owusu from Leibniz University Hannover received the second prize for their work “Future 5”. The two special prizes go to Till Connor and Lina Kolshorn, also from Leibniz Universität Hannover, for their design “Dear Braunschweig” and to Eric Kurzbuch and Conrad Peschel from TU Dresden for “Lifebelt Braunschweig”. Each prize is worth €2,000. Recognition prizes of €1,000 were awarded to Nadine Willems and Justin Pauls (RWTH Aachen) for their project “Desire for the City” and to Leon Krug and Cecilia Redante (TU Braunschweig) for “Braunschweig Triad”.

The Johannes Göderitz Prize regularly addresses current urban policy issues. The competition provides a platform for participating students from different urban planning institutes to position their urban design as a personal statement on the respective task. In return, the awarding city receives a wide range of different designs.

Climate crisis requires a new approach to urban spaces

“Societal changes such as the turnaround in transport and progressive digitalisation, which are significantly changing the way we work and trade, catalysed by the Corona pandemic, mean that there is an urgent need for a new spatial and programmatic orientation of the city centre. In addition, the ongoing climate crisis requires a new approach to urban spaces,” says Professor Uwe Brederlau, head of the Institute for Urban Design and Design Methodology at TU Braunschweig and chairman of the Johannes Göderitz Foundation. The competition entries submitted by the students have all taken up this challenge.

“City centres are in a constant process of change. The contributions, with their very different approaches, show interesting ideas and experiments and provide an exciting basis for discussion about the future development of the city centre,” said Heinz-Georg Leuer, head of the city’s planning and building control office. “The first prize takes up the idea of bringing production areas back into the city centre, thus reviving an important element of the city centres during industrialisation. I really like that.”

Bernd Schmidbauer, chairman of the competition jury and head of the city of Braunschweig’s Department of Urban Planning and Geoinformation, emphasised the diversity of the different approaches and the high level of elaboration of the works, and pointed out the high degree of individuality of the designs. In three tours, the works were viewed and intensively discussed.

Students from the participating universities – RWTH Aachen, TU Berlin, TU Braunschweig, TU Dresden and Leibniz Universität Hannover – submitted a total of 22 projects. “The content of the designs varies greatly, but they all paint imaginative pictures of the city centre that make us look forward to the future of Braunschweig. It is great to see how many positive concepts there are for the development of the city centre that go beyond the mere economisation of space,” says Professor Uwe Brederlau.

The city centre as a place of flexible and decentralised production

In their design “Urban Production”, Yu Chen and Zhiyuan Jiang address the city centre as a place of flexible and decentralised production. Taking Braunschweig-based companies in the clothing, automotive, mechanical engineering, biomedical and aviation industries as a starting point, the idea is to expand and complement these areas with small, customer-specific companies, manufactories, fab labs and rooftop farms. In addition to creative production, the students propose strengthening the circular economy, reducing private transport, establishing a decentralised energy supply and unsealing surfaces to improve the quality of the city centre.

A new inner-city logistics network will be developed as the basis for urban production. The inner-city ring road will provide urban micro-logistics and enable production and housing to be linked. In the courtyards, communal green spaces will be expanded, large roofs will be greened and pocket parks will be created in public spaces.

This approach to urban production convinced the jury, which awarded the project first prize. “The city centre remains a place of commerce, but is transformed and strengthened by additional uses,” said the jury. “The Karstadt area, including the car park, is being redesigned in depth. The mix of uses appears to be coherent. The above-mentioned functions of production and trade are complemented by the centrally located residential use. When you look at it, images emerge that make you want to see more.”

The Johannes Göderitz Prize 2024 will be awarded

on Friday, 25 October 2024, at 5 p.m.

at the Flebbe-Haus, Bohlweg 1-2, 38100 Braunschweig.

The exhibition of the works can be seen in the shop window of the Flebbe-Haus until 28 October.

The competition was organised in close cooperation with the city of Braunschweig, which was represented on the jury by city planning officer Heinz-Georg Leuer and Bernd Schmidbauer, head of the city’s Urban Planning and Geoinformation Department.