German Port Town Transforms into Thriving, Ambitious Community

HafenCity, a neighborhood in the Hamburg docklands, is sprouting into a model redevelopment project by caring for the human element and adapting the port's cultural history into the physical landscape.

1 minute read

July 13, 2011, 12:00 PM PDT

By Kristopher Fortin


Mother Nature Network's Chris Turner took a tour with Hamburg city planning director Jörn Walter and found how "even in its infancy, HafenCity's vibe is excellent."

"Here's an even more radical embrace of the nautical: a broad floating plaza on pontoons, serving as a main square for this phase of the development. The fact of water - both embracing it and keeping it at bay - was a central design challenge for the project, and HafenCity has been deliberately built as "a three-level public space" (as Walter put it)."

Turner also described how planners figured in the human element before completely developing the commercial and residential space:

"The school is already up and running; the first supermarket will open this fall; and the first of two planned subway stations linking HafenCity to the rest of Hamburg will open in 2012."

Overall, the project is an ambitious one:

"HafenCity's numbers are pretty astounding: almost 400 acres of old industrial harbor, a 25-year project lifespan, somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 billion eventually invested to house 13,000 people and provide office space for 45,000 more."

Monday, July 11, 2011 in Mother Nature Network

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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