Weissenhof and Stuttgart Kunstakademie New Ground, Stuttgart, Germany, 2022
Located right next to the Weissenhof Siedlung complex in the outskirts of Stuttgart, Germany, the Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste (Academy of Fine Arts) is seeking for an extension building that relates to the Modernist UNESCO World Heritage it sits next to.
The project is an intervention in a highly landmarked area that lost its luster due to the destruction of a good part of the critical mass of the original exhibition housing. The challenge is to bring new energy in an area where most cannot be touched.
This proposal uses plateaus, a theme that is inherent to the modern movement, as programmed podiums to the landmark buildings. It frees new ground through the university and Weissenhof exhibition buildings.
The existing topographic challenges of the site are turned into an advantage and uses the potential of its hills and valleys to create flat new areas of interaction for students and visitors.
The structure is a model to combat runoff, flash flooding and other detrimental environmental impact caused by an excess of water. The design is meant to be a replicable and customizable template for populating the city with a network of micro green spaces having functional and social capacities. This is the first instance of a modular, movable, transferrable steel-based structure outdoor dining pavilion that found its new home in New York, SoHo.
As outdoor dining structures become permanent in many cities around the world, the project imagines a multi-ownership and multi-use assembly. The vision is for a small urban device to be deployed as a large city transformation strategy when embraced by many.
