The planning area lies between the medieval centre of Berlin and the more northerly Spandauer Vorstadt. The principal components of the scheme are a 22-metre-wide promenade, the new-build premises of the Kunsthochschule in two extra urban villas, and lastly the treatment of the blind outer walls of the existing blocks.

The design is a reaction to plans for a 'critical reconstruction' drawn up by city architect Hans Stimmann. Nostalgia characterizes his urban approach, squeezing the new developments into a corset of one idealized period in history: turn-of-the-century Berlin with its city blocks. By contrast, this graduation project sets out to add a contemporary layer to the city's rich history, a history in which each period left its own imprint on the architecture of Berlin.

The promenade, a 'walking-strip' of sand, shells and slopes runs between the houses and links the modest park of Monbijou with Hackescher Markt. This strip is an excavation that recalls the desert of sand once stretching out in front of the city wall. The blank walls along the strip are the aftermath of infrastructural interventions needed to lay out the tramline at the end of the last century. The block development was broken open, and the interiors courts of the blocks or 'Hinterhöfe' became part of an intriguing parklike urban clearing. The present scheme seeks to conserve and enhance the quality of the above. Solar courts and balconies hung against the blank walls give the impression that these facades are complete; they will no longer recall the absence of the demolished buildings. The new-build for the Kunsthochschule rounds off the reconstruction of the open zone into a configuration found all over Berlin, simultaneously confirming the logic of the existing, free-standing development.

Place of education: TU Delft
Tutors: Carel Weeber, Franziska Bollerey & Henk Mihl
Specialization: architecture.