Redensification Fürstenried West

Fürstenried West is a testimony to the guiding principle of the structured and dispersed city. The large housing estate originates from an important phase of Munich's urban development in the 1960s and 1970s that shaped the cityscape. There is a superordinate, loosened-up arrangement of buildings that follows an orthogonal order. The landscape flows freely between the buildings. The overlapping of urban setting and landscape space are the characteristics of this settlement. The spatial structure is formed by the neighbourhood of different typologies: point houses, rows and staggered point houses arranged in rows. This loosened structure offers diverse potential for redensification. The design interprets and concretises these places by adding new typologies and creating new urban contexts that draw their strength from the dialogue between existing buildings and redensification.

Clearly identifiable in their different and special potentials and qualities, three sub-quarters are recognised and treated in a focussed manner. The way of redensification reacts to the respective special features of the three quarters:

"Meander Space" - The building area east of Appenzellerstrasse:

The appropriately scaled, fine-grained redensification with low building heights rearticulates the street space and creates a meandering varied open space between the existing buildings and the new buildings set at right angles to Appenzellerstrasse. A new, clearly oriented, permeable internal and development space with high recreational and identification value is created.

"Enfilade landscape" - The building site to the west of Appenzeller Strasse:

The building field forms its character from the tall buildings. This spatial sequence is strengthened by the placement of new buildings and forms a new rhythm on Appenzeller Strasse. Clearly defined, spatially defined new subspaces are created that offer appropriate space for public uses. The distinctive edge of the city is continued by the placement of new point buildings, which complement the row and strengthen the diagonal spatial reference.

"Open residential courtyard" - the building site north of Bellinzona Street:

The orthogonally twisted building position, both to Bellinzona Street and to Forst-Kasten Street, is supplemented in staggered building volumes. The result is a rhythmic street space and clearly identifiable open residential courtyards of high residential value.

Careful consideration was given to which typologies would gain in their urban context as an object through the addition of a storey and contribute to the newly created urban structure. The 4-storey point house type was chosen, which is found west of Appenzeller Strasse and north of Bellinzona Strasse. In the new urban context, the existing point buildings are given more prominence as high points. The 2-storey extension creates a new building. The exclusive offer of 4-room flats is extended by 2- and 3-room flats, thus creating the prerequisite for a more multi-layered house community. The four-storey existing building with its protruding loggias, the vertical window strips and the large-format exposed aggregate concrete slabs is partly continued to the base and partly supplemented in its volumes. The structural relationship to the existing building is created by joining partial volumes together. The plasticity of the building is strengthened by a white, finely meshed expanded metal cladding. The extension is being built as a timber construction (panel construction), which offers a great advantage due to its high degree of prefabrication and its lightness. The construction method allows for a shortened building process and thus leaves the existing tenants undisturbed as far as possible.

The new buildings to the west of Appenzeller Strasse specify the urban characteristics and typologies found and described by mediating between the street and the neighbourhood's in-depth landscape space and marking an entrance to this landscape space on the street. The demand for a high mix of uses and flat sizes is implemented in this building. On the ground floor, facing south, there is a café, a community hall and a community gallery, and in the northern part of the building there are studio flats with studio rooms facing the street. The building consists of 3 structures. Each structure has its own entrance and staircase. A mixture of 1.5 - 4-room flats is oriented mostly on two sides to an open-air area. The street side is clearly structured and urban in appearance, while the west side offers reliefed, stepping open spaces to the landscape. As a special feature, the building also offers communal loggias on the stairwells and a communal terrace.