Anwohnerpark
B-side tuning of the KunstWerk building, Cologne 2006
The triangular carpark has a short, open side towards the Deutz-Mühlheimer-Strasse, and a longer and spatially more active side created by the soaring Zoobrücke, featuring typical “under the bridge situations “such as deposited office containers. A stately firewall flanks the longest side of the triangle. This wall is part of the presumably biggest studio complex in Germany, the "KunstWerk".
In terms of urban space something completely different starts here: A mix of old, mostly converted industrial compounds and housing areas.
At this site of clashing and completely different urban spaces, the osa_office for subversive architecture group carried out a so to speak complex intervention in the context of "plan06" whose evolution could be watched during the plan06 week. The project takes the existing ornament of the fairground car park and continued it on the partywall of the neighbouring studio complex KunstWerk that flanks the Zoobrücke. The aesthetic sinews of this unremarkable as well as abstract graphics does not only integrate an icon of public awareness at a prominent spot of a structurally difficult urban space – but also solved apropos of nothing the issue of parking space for residents in a simple and sustainable fashion,given the continued pressure of the fair ground on the neighbouring areas.
The new car park accounts for the requirement of the city government
of provable parking space and the scarce horizontal areas as well as the actual
demand of parking space by the artists who live and work here and mostly use public transport or ride by bicycle.
