Creative quarter in the Zeuna-Stärker area
Our structural design concept is strongly oriented towards the specifications of the urban planning competition win. As a guiding principle, we therefore consider the "appropriateness" of the figure and gesture of the new ensemble, in particular the high-rise, to be important for the specific situation and task in the Oberhausen district with its heterogeneous environment and milieu: we do not consider a landmark in the true sense of the word, not a "residential tower" but an urban accent in the overall area to be the right thing.
We are proposing a residential slab in timber hybrid construction, which also complies with the principle of sustainability in close coordination with the structural design and preventive fire protection with a suspended timber slat façade. The residential slab forms a design dialectic with the brick lower storeys of the flatter buildings flanking the Kreativhof.
The building of the former training workshop, which is to be preserved in its formative parts, provides the prelude. As the future branch of the adult education center, the brick building forms an essential component of the ensemble. Brick as a building material for the façade design is therefore also our specification for the new residential and studio building to be erected in place of the "Zeuna-Giebelbau" and for the base of the high-rise building. The interplay between the horizontal layering of the brickwork and the vertical timber slat structure ties all the buildings together in terms of design and shapes the ensemble. These design elements are identity-forming and appropriate for the creative quarter in its significance between history and future. Instead of the desired extension in front of the former training workshop, we propose an extension of the usable space on the roof of the training workshop, which is given a new character by large loggias and the vertical wooden slats. The characteristic gabled façade and the tree in front of it are thus preserved.
Instead of an elaborate reconstruction of the Zeuna gable, which is significant in its reminiscence of Augsburg's industrial history, an artistic interpretation in collaboration with the Augsburg artist Felix Weinold seems the more suitable means. The gable, which has been fragmented into parts, now appears as a sculpture on the Kreativhof from a defined point of view and recalls the former use of the area. The compression of the wooden slats on the gable façade of the new building only gives a faint hint of the past.
