Bern: New housing estate on Mutachstrasse
Immobilien Stadt Bern has completed the investor and project competition for the housing estate on Mutachstrasse and the Holligen Nord district park. The "Huebergass" project of the non-profit developer "Wir sind Stadtgarten, Bern" is to be realized.
A development with around 110 affordable apartments is to be built on Mutachstrasse, and the Holligen Nord district park is also to be renovated. The building law requirements for the project were already created in 2014.
On behalf of the Fund for Land and Housing Policy, Immobilien Stadt Bern (ISB) held a combined competition for the planned housing development and the adjacent district park. A bidding consortium was sought to take over the planning, financing, construction and operation. Only non-profit housing developers from Switzerland were admitted as developers or investors.
The most important criteria in the evaluation of the total of ten entries submitted were the creation of affordable housing with a cost-covering return, sustainable construction and networking with the Holligen Nord district park, says ISB.
The jury unanimously selected the "Huebergass" project as the competition winner and recommended it for further development. The winning team consists of the non-profit developer "Wir sind Stadtgarten, Bern", GWJ Architektur AG from Bern, ASP Landschaftsarchitekten from Zurich and the Bernese social planner Martin Beutler. Behind "We are Stadtgarten, Bern" stands according to information from the Bernese newspaper Halter AG.
As a narrow courtyard composed of individual buildings with different shapes, the award-winning project continues the adjacent neighborhood structure on the north and east sides. In addition, a quiet garden courtyard is created in the space between the neighboring buildings to the north.
Rental price targets were undercut
"The buildings are characterized by simple and robust architecture," the city of Bern informs. "Thanks to simple bodies, clean building structure, minimization of areas, volumes and basements, the low rent specifications formulated in the competition are undercut," it continues.
The authors of the winning project understand the district park as an independent urban space that is to represent a "wild neighborhood oasis for the residents of the settlement, as well as for everyone else". In the west, the park will end with a row of plane trees and thus respond to the existing design of the open spaces from Loryplatz to Huberstrasse.
In the park itself, the planners want to reduce the hard surface to a minimum and create a large play and sunbathing area. A playscape is being created along the embankment on Schlossstrasse; various elements such as wild hedges, hedge fringes or water areas are to create near-natural spaces with ecological potential.
