Potsdamer Platz Urban Design Competition

In Urban Design

Posted: Aug 18th, 2009 / Last Edited: Jun 1st, 2010 Print

Description

The proposal for Potsdamer Platz and its periphery strives for both wholeness and harmony. And contradiction and opposition it says much about the contemporary metropolis and about Berlin in particular the site's rich, varied history provided a new starting point for the present: various found pieces were used to enhance its energy.

Specifically, we proposed a 100-by-600-meter space carved from the site as an organizational gesture – the first new mark. This gash is meant to equal the intensity of the memory of the Berlin wall and its parallel space. The solution provides a subliminal reversal of the wall in that its void does not close off but opens, acting as a connection to the origins of the historic city. The idea was to collapse time, to use various remnants from history to form new collaborations and structures in an open-ended urban organism. Potsdamer Platz, originally a public square, now reveals itself as a volume, a vertical structure. This form suggests an elliptical traffic island, which was the original focus of the square, recentering the area in the absence of the former urban fabric. The solution proposes using edges of earth and pieces of buildings exposed by scraping landscape and the city intersect, integrating the Tiergarten and its urban boundary. Pieces of the new park leap over the former demilitarized zone, escaping its confines.
The proposal for Potsdamer Platz and its periphery strives for both wholeness and harmony. And contradiction and opposition it says much about the contemporary metropolis and about Berlin in particular the site's rich, varied history provided a new starting point for the present: various found pieces were used to enhance its energy.

Specifically, we proposed a 100-by-600-meter space carved from the site as an organizational gesture – the first new mark. This gash is meant to equal the intensity of the memory of the Berlin wall and its parallel space. The solution provides a subliminal reversal of the wall in that its void does not close off but opens, acting as a connection to the origins of the historic city. The idea was to collapse time, to use various remnants from history to form new collaborations and structures in an open-ended urban organism. Potsdamer Platz, originally a public square, now reveals itself as a volume, a vertical structure. This form suggests an elliptical traffic island, which was the original focus of the square, recentering the area in the absence of the former urban fabric. The solution proposes using edges of earth and pieces of buildings exposed by scraping landscape and the city intersect, integrating the Tiergarten and its urban boundary. Pieces of the new park leap over the former demilitarized zone, escaping its confines.
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