Education and Community Centre Neugraben-Fischbek

Redevelopment of an education and community centre with a hall for Federal-league volleyball
Hamburg, Neugraben-Fischbek

Competition 2009 - acquisition

The Education and Community Centre in Neugraben-Fischbek is positioned in a heterogeneous urban environment between building of a commercial nature in Cuxhavener Strasse, the hub, village-like in its appearance, of Neugraben and the rising, newly-built area with its detached, semi-detached and terraced housing.
The character of the site will be stamped by its direct access to the future park. The ECC, with the planned utilities: school, day nursery, sports hall and urban cultural institutions, is to function as a binding, living corner-stone for the quarter.
In order to satisfy this requirement, the project envisages an ensemble comprising four buildings, which, by being situated at different distances and slightly offset from one another, enters into a versatile dialogue with its surroundings. This strategic structuring lends the buildings solitaire-like as well as contextual character, thereby furnishing an answer to the question of the appropriate dimension of the ECC. The ensemble defines clear spatial edges to the sides of the park and at the same time enables an additional connection to existing access routes. In this way, a public centre is brought into being, around which buildings with important functions are orientated: the school with its generous playground entrance and school terrace, the theatre with its entrance, the sports hall with its options of ground-level, wide-spaced portals opening onto the square and  the pavilion with its workshops and studios.
The project interprets the location as space for a square in a green corridor. In interplay with the buildings, a centre comes into being that is frequented by the public. Thanks to its link to the green corridor, it creates its own identity and becomes a place of attraction for the general population. With this, the exposed hall roofing will become the centre's visible landmark for miles around. Apportioning the project into four distinct constructions creates the option of realising it step-by-step.