Winner Archiprix

Text from AvB:

Tempelhof: Berlin's Public Garden won Archiprix 2011. Each year the institutions that teach design in the Netherlands select the best graduation projects of their students for submission to Archiprix. Diversity is typical of Archiprix. Unlike most competitions there is no common design task. Scale, issues, presentation - all of these differ per plan. Up and coming talent is often presented for the first time by Archiprix. The high quality of the prize-winning projects leads us to expect that the talent of those taking part in Archiprix will signify an enrichment of the professional world. Here's the winning dissertation by Jan Martijn Eekhof now urban designer at Groningen municipality:

A design for the transformation of the former Tempelhof Airport into a food centre for the city of Berlin. A structure of porous city blocks with communal gardens mediates between the city and a new productive landscape.

Berlin Tempelhof Airport has been shut down. Both airfield and terminal are empty, awaiting a new duty to perform. This is a site with a history. The gigantic terminal was the most ambitious building erected by the Nazi regime. After the war the air corridors between the airport and the West marked the dramatic start of the Cold War. Tempelhof was the food centre of West Berlin.

Now an open expanse the size of Amsterdam's canal ring area with a vast derelict terminal building has become freed for new use in the heart of the city. The area can be reached by U-bahn, S-bahn and motorway. In most Western capital cities, an area this size would have been promptly planned to capacity. Berlin is an exception. It is a slow-moving, relaxed metropolis with little market pressure. There is no lack of space here. Developments have both the time and the room to unfold. As a result, the city can be developed in ways other than with large-scale real estate. This leaves the question of how in this situation an urban plan can draw out the unique qualities of field and building and invest them with new meaning for Berlin.

This requires a plan that functions without a physical programme, a plan that can grow steadily over time to generate new urban tissue. Berlin's Public Garden hitches the city's development to food. Tempelhof is back again as a food centre for the city. The mechanisms of food production, distribution, consumption and processing serve as an engine for generating a sturdy Berlin cityscape on this site. A landscape with many countenances.

A structure of 'porous' city blocks with communal gardens slowly unfurls amid the orchards. They are the link between the received city and the expanse of productive landscape that doubles as a unique park. The food terminal opens up to provide spectacular public spaces with a view of city, field and building. A new layer is added to the rich history of Tempelhof Airport, a layer in which transparent local food production is welded to a continuously changing urban landscape.

• Place of education: AvB Amsterdam 
• Specialization: urban design 
• Tutors: Bart Stoffels, Ivonne de Nood, Luc Vrolijks

Via: Archiprix.nl