Quarters

From Local Industrial Pioneers to Green Urban Quarter

Historic industrial buildings and railroad station remains influence the neighborhood. Growing Lohsepark is HafenCity’s "Central Park"

Aerial photograph of the site today: the area of the future Lohsepark is still being used by a logistics company and for infrastructure building works (© ELBE&FLUT) Start slideshow

Framed by water surfaces to the north and south, an inviting urban space is taking shape in central HafenCity, with Lohsepark as its “green soul”. The starting point for development was the partially listed red-brick ensemble at Lohseplatz. Harburger Gummi-Kamm-Compagnie, which once occupied it, was a pioneer of industrialization in Hamburg. Now, the historic industrial ensemble is a sensitively renovated architectural gem. Its occupants include the Prototyp private automobile collection. In future the ensemble will have three new buildings as neighbors (67–69).

Living by the park

Am Lohsepark will be a vibrant part of HafenCity full of variety. A large block of around 20,000 sqm gross floor area (GFA) to be built from 2012 between Shanghaiallee and Yokohamastrasse will include an urban mix of a total 140 rental, subsidized and owner apartments. Successful bidders for one of the sites (70) were two pioneers of Hafen-City development, the cooperative housing corporation Bergedorf-Bille and builder Otto Wulff. In cooperation with Leben mit Behinderung, a charity for the disabled, the development will include integrative living concepts for people with or without disabilities. This neighborhood will also have two child daycare centers, a medical center and a small supermarket. The building will also have an assembly space. The architectural competition in 2011 resulted in three winners: APB Architekten and Böge Lindner K2 Architekten of Hamburg, as well as Haslob Kruse + Partner Archi-tekten (Bremen).

The exclusive option on the neighboring site (71) went to a consortium of four joint building ventures made up of about 75 individual owner-builders; the project will be overseen by Stattbau Hamburg and Conplan GmbH. In addition to privately owned apartments being built by Behrendt Wohnungsbau, a range of rental homes at different price levels are being developed by Frank Heimbau Nord. The architecture will be decided 2012.

HafenCity’s biggest park

The new four-hectare Lohsepark neighborhood park will form a green belt running from Ericusgraben channel in the north to Baakenhafen neighborhood in the south. An international open space competition was held to find a design for it in 2010. Finally it was Vogt Landschaftsarchitekten AG (Zurich) that convinced the jury with its concept of a space for movement, extending “from edge to edge of the buildings” and “from water’s edge to water’s edge”. Curving paths lead through grass and meadows dotted with many trees.

Water features and benches will invite people to stop a while. For children there will also be a community house with a playground. The long sides of the park are terraces, which allow barrier-free integration of park and city. The park will be laid out on three levels: around 5.5m, 6.5m and 8m above sea level.

Quiet remembrance amid activity

One particular requirement is to work ideas for an integrated place of remembrance into the park. The area of the future park was once the site of Hanover railroad station, from which at least 7,692 people – Jews and Sinti and Roma – were deported during the Second World War. The station building, which was severely damaged in the war, was demolished in 1955. For the first time in Hamburg, a place of remembrance of this kind will be located in a central place. The place of remembrance concept foresees a landscape design feature, a seam, slashing diagonally through the park, connecting the relics of the former railroad station forecourt with what remains of Platform 2. A documentation center in Am Lohsepark will provide a permanent venue for an exhibition about the deportations, presented in spring 2009 in Kunsthaus Hamburg.

Areas needed for the development of Lohsepark will be in use by a forwarding company until 2017. However, the first sub-areas can be developed from 2012 for completion in 2013. By 2019 the whole park will be at the public’s disposal.