The Metro wholesale market site in Düsseldorf is to be redesigned. The urban and open space planning competition has now been won by the team from Acme, London, with Stadt Land Fluss, Berlin and Kieran Fraser Landscape Design, Vienna. Read all about the project here.
The Metro wholesale market site in Düsseldorf is to be redesigned. The urban and open space planning competition has now been won by the team from Acme, London, with Stadt Land Fluss, Berlin and Kieran Fraser Landscape Design, Vienna. Read all about the project here.
The project involves 9.2 hectares of land in the north of the Düsseldorf district of Flingern. Until now, the site has housed a Metro supermarket and a Media Markt store, both with their associated parking lots. Now a completely new quarter is to be created here, equally suitable for working and living, sustainable, mixed, green and free of car traffic. The plans that have now won the competition to develop the Düsseldorf Metro Campus come from the offices of Acme from London and Stadt Land Fluss from Berlin.
Second place went to the Lorber Paul Architekten team from Cologne with Prof. Rolf-Egon Westerheide and Club l94 Landschaftsarchitekten from Cologne. 3rd place went to the team caspar.schmitzmorkramer from Cologne with Schellenberg + Bäumler Architekten from Dresden with Studio grüngrau Landschaftsarchitektur from Düsseldorf.
The concept by Acme and SLF envisages a four-part structure of the Metro Campus in four sub-quarters:
Campus Quarter
The focal point of the new quarter is to be created here. Catering areas, shopping facilities, event rooms and more are grouped around a central green open space, which serves as a meeting point, marketplace and access to the other districts.
Park quarter
To the east of the campus is the Park Quarter with a central square. Around the green space, a unit for living and working in the neighborhood, a logistics hub and a mobility hub are being built, connecting the largely car-free planned Düsseldorf Metro Campus to the surrounding infrastructure.
Green Lane Quarter
This quarter adjoins the Metro administrative buildings further south and thus connects the new areas with the existing ones. At its eastern end, both residential care units and several day care centers are planned.
Garden quarter
The focal point here is a spacious green area with several point structures connected by bridges, which is divided into private and communal areas. This quarter complements the family facilities of the Düsseldorf Metro Campus with a kindergarten and school.
The architectural language objective is to revive the reference to the character of Düsseldorf and the Flingern district, which is characterized by the heyday of industrialization. To this end, traces and materials from the 150-year building history of the property are to be made tangible for the people in the district. Wood will be used as the material for the load-bearing structures due to its climate neutrality. The rest of the materials refer to the history of the neighborhood with its various industrial operations. In the north, for example, differently colored and glazed bricks are reminiscent of the H. Schminke & Co. paint works, which once had its headquarters here. In the south, on the other hand, sculptural balconies made of hot-dip galvanized steel are reminiscent of the former Grafenberg rolling mill, where cold-rolled sheet metal was produced for Porsche in its day.
In contrast, the design aims to limit the use of concrete to a sensible level and also consider materials for reuse that are generated when the existing buildings are demolished.
Green concept to be consistently implemented
Through the extensive use of green facades and roofs, the new Metro Campus in Düsseldorf will not only contribute to the city’s climate resilience, but also offer a high quality of stay in the neighborhoods. The large green spaces that run through the neighborhoods serve as areas for leisure activities on the one hand and as unsealed seepage areas on the other. In the event of heavy rainfall, specially designed retention gardens will minimize the risk of flooding in the Metro Campus. Where appropriate, non-accessible roofs will be designed as extensive solar green roofs. The rainwater collected from the roofs will be treated and used for outdoor water applications.
However, it will still be a while before the first sod is turned. Construction work is expected to begin in four years at the earliest. Before that happens, however, the city’s residents will be asked for their opinion and the plans will be adapted accordingly in detail.
Interested in further urban planning competitions? In 2024, the German Armed Forces will leave the Erdinger Fliegerhorst. A new urban district will then be created on 380 hectares. We present the winning design for the “Erding Air Base” competition for 190 hectares here.
