IBA Thüringen

As part of the cooperative 'Sustainable Landscape for the Schwarzatal' workshop in 2018, which explored development concepts for various locations in the Schwarzatal valley, two sites alongside the River Schwarza were identified and are now designated as IBA projects. Schwarzmühle and Obstfelderschmiede both have a railway station and are starting points for hikers exploring the Panorama Trail.

Mini topographic interventions are being created to highlight specific aspects of the countryside, the elements, e.g. water, and the natural landscape. The plans include a stopover for walkers and a summer garden in Meuselbach-Schwarzmühle and a greened landscaped area near the railway station in Obstfelderschmiede. This ‘Wasserfrische’ is designed by the landscape architect Anna Lundqvist from the office MAN MADE LAND together with Mirko Andolina and Yuilia Pozzi from fabulism.

The ‘Wasserfrische’ is part of the selected concept developed jointly by ‘MAN MADE LAND’ and ‘fabulism’ during the‘Sustainable Landscape for the Schwarzatal’ workshop in 2018, organised by the ‘Zukunftswerkstatt Schwarzatal’ association in collaboration with the Saalfeld-Rudolstadt LEADER action group and with support from the government’s MORO spatial planning action programme and the IBA Thüringen. Their concept, entitled ‘Slow Landscape – Sommerfrische Panoramic Network’, envisages the 136-kilometre-long Schwarzatal Panoramic Trail as a unifying, connecting element.

How can we conserve resources at all levels in the urban-rural StadtLand of tomorrow? Nordhausen council, the SWG municipal housing association and Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences, along with numerous other local and regional participants, have come togehter in an exceptional process to find answers to these questions.

The open, collaborative process began with five public workshops in 2015 and 2016 on the topics of urban redevelopment, the transition to new sources of energy, recycling, mobility and communication, which brought together around 400 interested parties and representatives from education, research, local politics, business and administration. The results form the basis of a new strategy for the future of Nordhausen in which the sustainable use of resources is seen as a social goal involving all aspects of society, rather than merely as a technical challenge. Through the joint action of all partners, the intention is to minimise the consumption of raw materials and energy and to obtain them from renewable sources.

Since then, four thematic projects have developed for Nordhausen in different collaborative constellations: the environmentally-conscious conversion of the mass housing district of Nordhausen Nord, the experimental redensification of the Altendorfer Kirchviertel in the old town, the development of a sustainable mobility concept for the town and region, and the elaboration of climate and design guidelines as a new informal planning instrument.

“What was once a simple rural transport interchange is now an interchange between asphalt and plant beds, between discounters and cooperatives, between globalisation and regional cycles – in short a showcase example of StadtLand.”
Prof. Andreas Wolf, former member of the IBA Thüringen Advisory Board

The train still runs but the station is closed – a situation that is typical of many rural areas. Königsee in the Schwarzatal is no different, although it was once a tourist destination, a centre for agriculture and home to medium-sized businesses.

But since 5 July 2019, the long-vacated railway station in Rottenbach has been revitalised as a gateway to the Schwarzatal. The former railways station has been transformed into a local shop and community meeting place.

Since 2011, the Landleben Foundation has been building a network of health, nursing and medical support in six municipalities in northern Thuringia. In 2017, the foundation’s pilot project ‘Landengel’ started as a healthcare networking platform: the ‘Landengel’ helpers drive senior citizens to medical appointments, organise trips or run games afternoons. Less stress and more time thanks to short distances is the project’s credo.

Just how short such distances should be, or how far apart they can be, is being trialled using bus stops converted into health kiosks. The idea is that doctors, nursing and health care providers, along with pharmacies and other service pro- viders work together with the Landengel under one roof. The Berlin architecture o ce Pasel-K Architects was commissioned in 2019 to develop a design manual for the health kiosks. Alongside a sheltered waiting area and public toilets, the kiosks should have a multi-purpose space. Each kiosk will be unique and made of wood. Traditional timber-frame structures are one possibility, as are a combination of digital fabrication and analogue construction or the re-use of building materials from demolished structures as a form of recycling or upcycling.

On the site of a former barracks on Beulwitzer Straße, situated between housing for refugees and a residential quarter, Saalfeld council and local education institutions are working together with local residents to create new kinds of work and recreational spaces. Around half of the participants are local residents and half refugees and displaced people. 

In summer workshops in 2017 and 2018, the new and existing residents worked jointly to explore ways of creating a place to meet and make their own. They built, celebrated and learned from one another in a series of stimulating and enjoyable encounters.

The IBA Thüringen and other partners in Thuringia are devising projects under the heading ‘Arrival StadtLand’ that address the consequences of displacement and immigration. In Saalfeld, a space made by many for use by many is evolving with the participation of creative people from the region. Neighbours new and old are consciously setting an example that strengthens the local sense of community and symbolises the openness of the urban-rural StadtLand of Thuringia.

On a site on the edge of the centre of Gera, adjoining the Congress and Cultural Centre, 2.5 hectares of disused land are awaiting reactivation – indeed have been for 15 years. The city has struggled to find investors for its once vibrant centre for many years.

In 2014, committed citizens and entrepreneurs from Gera took things into their own hands. The association ›Ja – für Gera‹ answered the IBA Thüringen’s call for projects and proposed the idea of a new ›strong centre‹. A Europan urban design competition followed in 2015, organised by the city, the association and a group of citizens, which generated ideas that fed into the following planning stages.

After a flash mob in 2016, in which local citizens took to Gera's ‘New Centre’ with their umbrellas, the memorable ‘Lemon Squeezer’ art project in 2017, and two large exhibitions at the Congress and Cultural Centre (KuK), Gera City Council approved the urban development master plan in 2018. As one of Gera’s largest urban development projects, it has been the subject of ongoing passionate and at times heated debate.

From June to August 2019, the ‘Raumstation Weimar’ collective invited visitors and residents to once again meet and exchange ideas at Gera’s ‘New Centre’: their ‘GERANIA’ project explored utopian ideas for using open space and how they could become reality. More than 40 events took place along with countless meetings and discussions.

The next major milestone followed in December 2019 with the announcement of an open landscape architecture ideas competition ‘Gera: Freiraum Mitte’ for the design and realisation of the green space and squares in front of the KuK and city museum. 19 entries were examined and evaluated by a jury in May 2020.

The prize-winning design by Grieger Harzer landscape architects draws its strength from a ‘green heart’ that extends to the north and south. A diamond- shaped stone grid reaches right up to the buildings on all sides, erasing the usual boundaries between traffic and green space. At the same time, the diagonal pattern links and mediates between the disparate neighbours and is versatile in its use, accommodating functions and greenery. A new, transparent frame structure serves as an urban stage and meeting place with open, stepped seating and introduces a new sense of scale to the square in front of the KuK Culture and Congress Centre. The project gives Gera’s Neue Mitte a new identity that is playful and attractive and has the potential to become a new magnet and scene of urban life in Gera’s city centre.

With the opening of the border in 1989, tourism in the once booming summer destination of the Schwarzatal declined abruptly. Many jobs were lost, infrastructure deteriorated, residents moved away and buildings were left empty. The area is now one of the regions in Thuringia with the worst demographic forecasts (-30 percent from 2014 to 2035).

Local initiatives and projects committed to the development of the region and tourism have been building a strong network of civic partners to jointly shape the cultural landscape. As part of the Federal model project ‘Sustainable Landscape for the Schwarzatal’, the Zukunftswerkstatt Schwarzatal association together with the Saalfeld-Rudolstadt LEADER action group and the IBA Thüringen are working together to develop the outstanding qualities of the landscape as a uniting element that fosters local identity and shapes the image of the region to attract new guests from further a eld to the Schwarzatal.

In 2018 four landscape architecture offices were invited to the Schwarzatal to develop sustainable visions for the future of the cultural landscape. The chosen concept by ‘MAN MADE LAND’ and ‘fabulism’ envisages the 140-kilometre-long Schwarzatal Panoramic Trail as a connecting element. The team proposed a range of smaller and larger interventions — entitled ‘Waldfrische’, ‘Wasserfrische’, ‘Wiesenfrische’ and ‘Dorffrische’ — to highlight the qualities of the woodland, water, meadows and villages so typical of the landscape, and to strengthen the local economy.