Bern: Planning competition for Viererfeld has been launched
The starting signal has been given for the largest planning competition in Bern for years. Since January 17, 2018, the program for the Viererfeld/Mittelfeld urban planning competition has been posted on simap.ch. Meanwhile, Bernese architects criticized the city's approach.
The city of Bern expects the planning competition Viererfeld/Mittelfeld, which has now been launched, to produce "intelligent, sustainable solution proposals" for the major urban development project.
In a first step, interdisciplinary planning teams with competences in urban planning/architecture, landscape architecture, social affairs and mobility can apply for the competition. The jury will select 25 planning teams by mid-April. The decisive factors are the composition and qualifications of the team as well as references. Three to five young teams are also to be represented among the planning teams.
The selected teams will then have until the beginning of October 2018 to develop design proposals for a dense and mixed urban neighborhood with around 1,140 apartments for 3,000 people. In addition to a convincing urban development concept, the teams are also expected to propose solutions for the planned district park and ideas for a structural implementation within a construction field.
By the end of 2018, the jury should have decided on the projects submitted. In addition to the urban planning mandate for a master plan and that for the district park, the city wants to award several project planning contracts for building sites at the same time.
This procedure of the city of Bern was criticized by Bernese architects and engineers. In an open letter to the city president Alec von Graffenried, they wrote that the procedure chosen by the city was "fundamentally wrong". The bone of contention is that the pre-qualified teams could design plans for the urban development, the district park and some of the residential buildings. The team that wins the urban design competition will then work with the city to develop the master plan for the new district.
For the 50 authors of the open letter, this procedure is "incomprehensible. An urban planning competition must be limited to urban planning aspects and public spaces and not already address the question of architecture, they write. Instead of a competition addressed to interdisciplinary teams of architects, landscape architects, traffic planners and sociologists, an "open urban planning competition with simple framework conditions" is needed, they continue.
