Location: Backnang, Germany
Client: The City of Backnang
Consultants: Twin & Earth, East

[ URBAN DESIGN / INFRASTRUCTURE / CIVIC / EDUCATION / RESIDENTIAL / COMMERCE]
[ 2002 ]

An environmentally friendly light industrial and residential neighbourhood between the Murr river and Wilhelmstraße / Fabrikstraße / Untere Au. The 16.7ha site will feature innovative new mixed housing solutions together with educational and cultural facilities with resilient buildings, structures, processes and formats that work for different future approaches to living. 

The guiding principles for the site are utilisation of the sun, maximisation of existing and new natural environments, ease of movement across and within the site deprioritising the car and integrated, sustainable, low carbon, whole life energy use and reduction.

The project will serve as a showcase for the International Building Exhibition 2027.

All primary living spaces are south-facing, maximising sunlight and solar gain, each with an individual terrace that forms part of an ecological, living hierarchy of public and private space over multiple levels. This integrated landscape of homes and green spaces will gently rise in scale from south to north, exploiting the natural topography of the site.

Our solar strategy will exploit the sun’s heat in winter, using the built form to passively shade in summer, all while employing PV’s generating energy for the community. A seasonally calibrated district heating system centered around the old retained industrial chimneys will minimise waste, thermal mass is used in construction to retain the sun’s warmth, and in the summer the extended waterways dissipate excess heat.

Building technologies and construction methods, including off-site prefabrication and locally sourced skills will combine with a circular approach to construction, modular and reusable systems will provide homes that are economically sustainable.

A landscape for outdoor living will build upon the existing landscape of underused waterways creating a vibrant biodiversity corridor through a connected pedestrian/cyclist green riverside walk that connects the town centre to the east with the existing railway station and the new neighbourhood to the west.

[6] New river crossings are added to stitch the northern and southern sides of the Murr. Water and nature will be the overarching elements of a unique and truly democratic public ground level of shared surface streets and communal gardens. This landscape will be used to connect physically and socially to the wider community of Backnang, creating strong links and knitting the new community into the existing. 

Drawing from the best examples of social housing, Backnang will create a new version of social architecture - placing people and the planet over profit. Housing will include new flexible indoor space which responds to the changing way in which we live and work from home.

A new set of typologies will provide spaces for the diverse community; [1] Family apartments, maisonettes and terraced homes with raised communal space including play and support facilities (over light industrial spaces to the north) stepped to exploit the natural topography in these areas. [2] Paired stepped apartments with maker spaces on ground with varied size dwelling above including live-work apartments, and shared and co-living spaces for students to those in retirement.

[7] Existing buildings are retained in the centre of the site and used for cultural and community facilities including cafes to support the park. [4] These are added to with contemporary buildings matching the materiality, mass and typology of the existing buildings by leading new architects in a string of further shared facilities that occupy the headland and centre of the site.

[5] New retail and mixed use spaces along Schontaller Str. are added to encourage a proximate local high street to support the new neighbourhood.

In the centre of the site a neighbourhood hub provides education facilities including a school, together with buildings related to leisure and health. This permeable heart has a low rise perimeter edge addressing the water and the adjacent residential street but the landscaped roof rises centrally allowing light into the slices through to taller public spaces both open, covered and enclosed.

Reduced parking and roadways will free space for walking, cycling and exercise. Cars become subservient to other forms of transport. Play and child-friendly thinking will create a safe home for young families, encouraging social and informal gatherings. Passive childcare and living streets will allow families and generations to interact and share experiences building a sense of neighbourhood.

Backnang will be socially, culturally, economically, and ecologically sustainable. It will be a place where people will live, play, learn, grow, eat, meet, teach and create, surrounded by and connected to nature.