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Located in the South Western corner of Germany close to the Swiss and French borders, Freiburg is a university town in an area that has benefited from high tech industry. The town’s population is 135,000, with a further 60,000 living in the suburbs and outlying hamlets and 53% of the Urban population are single and only 17% of households have children under 18.
The centre was heavily bombed, and so after the war, the city had to start by restoring its ancient fabric. It early on realised the impossibility of accommodating the car, and so invested heavily in a high quality public transport system, with six different tramlines. At the heart is an interchange with a new bridge carrying the trams and people on foot and bike over the railway lines, and as well as a major car park and bus station, there is also a solar powered garage for some 300 bikes.
The figures for modal shift since 1976 show that is bikes and pedestrians where the greatest growth has occurred, and car trips have been kept from rising without the centre losing either trade or investment. Indeed the network of pedestrianised streets have turned run-down areas into highly desirable places to live.
However one side effect has been that the population in the centre is now largely made up of singles, and those with families can no longer afford to live in the centre. Also spaces standards are rising by half a metre per year. To cope with the pressures the municipality has planned and developed two new settlements on land it has acquired. One called Vauban is a former barracks, and includes a high proportion of self build conversions of the old barracks buildings. The other Rieselfield has been built on former fields, opened up by an extension of the tram system.
Freiburg has gone for planned extensions to cope with demands for more space. The two settlement extensions of Riesefeld and Vauban are so different from anything yet attempted in Britain, it is easy to dismiss them as interesting but irrelevant. Yet they tackle some basic issues that apply equally to British cities, including how to attract families to live at high enough densities, and close enough to city centres to avoid depending on the private car, and this they do extremely well.
In Germany there has been a tradition of apartment living and social democracy. There has also been a strong sense of idealism, reflected in the success of the Green Party in elections. As a consequence in university towns at least there is significant demand for places that reinforce a sense of neighbourhood and sustainable living.
Case Study: Rieselfeld and Vauban
Planned to accommodate some 5,000 new homes, Rieselfield is now two thirds built, and is expected to be finished in another seven or so years. The city has put in the infrastructure, and then let sites to either private builders, housing associations, and self-build groups who put in sweat equity. There are a number of innovative principles, including minimising energy consumption, and water run-off, and with a mix of uses the whole development is intended to be environmentally friendly. There are a number of shops around the tram stops. Car parking outside the blocks is kept to a minimum. Some have parking under them, and there are large multi storey car parks at the edges.
Most of the housing is in five to six storey blocks made up of two storey maisonettes. There is a high stress on balconies and communal courtyards. However the most impressive feature is probably the ecological landscaping around the ditches, which has been replicated in the abundant planting around many of the blocks. Cycling is encouraged, and the whole environment is extremely child friendly, making it popular among those with young families. Unlike the centre, there are no signs of graffiti, and the development seems extremely popular, the high densities helping to generate street life and a sense of community at a neighbourhood level.
The apartments have been made attractive through a number of features:
First they are set in a wild landscape, which creates the sense of living in the country. Access to allotments is easy, and the small huts create a kind of ‘place in the country’.
Each block is different and this is encouraged by the high proportion developed by co-ops, in which the occupiers invest ‘sweat equity’. In Vauban, inspired perhaps by the conversions of the old barracks, the residents have very much made their mark, and take great pride in the semi-communal gardens.
The pattern of splitting blocks into maisonettes with separate entrances and large balconies overcomes many of the disadvantages of flat living. But it is probably the appeal of children growing up with ideal play conditions that attracts so many young parents to these new developments (possibly storing up problems for later),
While the blocks tend to be similar in height and footprint, each block looks individual because of the rich variety of materials and colours that are used. In Vauban, the policy of keeping cars in peripheral car parks also helps to make the development quieter and safer (while the use of crossroads without priority helps to keep traffic speeds down without any need of humps).
Dr Nicholas Falk is a founding director of URBED based in our London office.
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