Living in the Hospital Quarter, Heidelberg (DE)

Diversity, flexibility and neighbourhood are the guiding principles of our residential project on the site of the US Army Hospital in Heidelberg. Diversity through a wide range of future users, flexibility through variable uses of the basic structure, and neighbourhood through social interaction within the two building areas. Made possible, for example, by a front courtyard at the three point buildings (WA5) or a semi-public inner courtyard at the dissolved building block (W8).

We have designed the two building sites very differently. In building block W8, we grouped two L-shaped volumes with three houses each around a green inner courtyard. The spatial concept offers high-quality floor plan typologies and flexible structures ranging from maisonettes with directly connected underground parking spaces to conceptual living and shared apartments for the elderly. The timber hybrid construction made of prefabricated elements allows for a resource-saving, quick and cost-effective realisation of the project. On the ground floor, studios, a neighbourhood café, coworking spaces and a residents’ get-together point create attractive meeting places. Differently designed wooden façades create an individual character for the houses and clearly stand out from the surrounding residential blocks of the US hospital.

On site WA5, we have embedded three rectangular point buildings in the green strip running from east to west at the northern edge of the neighbourhood. This forms a buffer zone between the new residential quarter and the existing buildings to the north. The neighbourhood park in the south offers an unobstructed view and optimal lighting. The point houses will be realised as solid construction with a load-bearing and insulating layer of vertically perforated bricks and a rear-ventilated brick façade. The red brick façades with bay windows and generously projecting balconies create a striking address. The common basement of the three buildings houses storage and garbage rooms as well as bicycle parking.

Client: Deutsche Wohnwerte GmbH
Location: D-69126 Heidelberg, Karlsruher Str. 144
Architecture: Dietrich | Untertrifaller mit dreigegeneinen
Competition: 2022, 1. Prize
Construction: 2022 – 2024
Area: ca. 11,000 m²
Capacity: Appartments, commercial space, underground car park

Partners
statics, building physics, fire protection: PIRMIN JUNG, Remagen / landscape: Planstatt Senner, Überlingen /// renderings: Expressiv