CAR-FREE BERLIN, FRIEDRICHSTRASSE
The New Public Space
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Street space as a lively urban living room
By means of a design study, 3deluxe shows the potential of the public space in Berlin's Friedrichstraße - and how new, urban guiding principles emerge from it by eliminating the linearity of the classic street. Instead, a landscape is created that offers modern micromobility and pedestrians new, interwoven spaces.
From an urban planning perspective, the study also takes into account a promenade that aims to transform itself into a lively shopping street that is also popular with tourists by taking up as little space as possible for moving and stationary traffic - an attractive retail and commercial location that brings with it the spatial qualities of an attractive "public living room", among other things by transforming new potential space.
MORE SPACE AND ROOM FOR TRAFFIC AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT GOALS
In general, measures are currently being taken in many cities to rebalance the spatial distribution of the road in accordance with current social trends. This is because a large proportion of road users in cars move at speeds of up to 50km/h and also have spatial sovereignty. The barrier to micromobility and pedestrian traffic is only very slightly developed. Floor graphics are used to reallocate the existing space: less space for moving and parked cars, more space for pedestrians, cyclists and scooters. In favour of a higher quality of life, motorised individual traffic should hardly play a role in the future.
MOVEMENT AND ANIMATION FOR THE BENEFIT OF PEOPLE - IN A MORE EQUITABLY DISTRIBUTED SPACE
The next step is to adapt this valuable space not only cosmetically but also radically structurally to the new conditions: Pavements and street in the traditional sense will no longer exist. There is the chance of a complete redesign of the areas between the buildings, which will fundamentally change the future cityscape and the quality of stay by also promoting "soft mobility" such as cycling. This is what the architects from 3deluxe tried to demonstrate using Friedrichstraße as an example.
| Type | Urban development |
| Location | Berlin, Germany |
| Year | 2020 |
| Status | Design study |
»All the challenges that are currently piling up globally are reflected in the cities.«
DIETER BRELL, CREATIVE DIRECTOR AT 3DELUXE
SOFT MOBILITY AND HARMONIOUS ENCOUNTER
There are dynamic mobility zones dedicated to soft mobility (bikers, scooters, skaters, inliners, walkers, runners, public e-transportation) and in between zones and islands with different offers for the pedestrian city dwellers: communicative seating zones, workout & relaxation areas, playgrounds, water features, urban gardening, green zones, pop-up stages for cultural events, beer gardens, pop-up stores, recharging stations for e-mobility, etc.
The street of the future has landscape aspects: the urban landscape and rolling hills to divide the zones and give the different modes of transport playful momentum through skatepark-like terrain. Former street intersections could be the lively city squares of the future, hubs of urban life where a densification of urban offerings takes place and small deceleration islands for passers-by and acceleration hubs for the mobile to surf swiftly through the city.
In this way, the former street space, which was unfriendly to people, is given a new attractive quality of stay for city dwellers, closely linked to the new soft mobility.
3DELUXE'S EXPERIENCE IN LITHUANIA
The V-Plaza project in Lithuania, conceived by 3deluxe, shows approaches of how something like this can already look in reality. The completion and opening of the square coincided with the Corona pandemic in the early summer of 2020.
The open square design with interwoven zones for relaxing, communicating and playing and areas for mobile means of transport such as bicycles, scooters, skates and skateboards were extremely well received by the population - the square developed into a lively, public living room of the city throughout the summer.
For the architects of 3deluxe, this was a successful project to explore the future of urban space without cars - generous, inviting and attractive spaces for the ever-growing group of users of environmentally friendly individual mobility in harmonious interaction with pedestrians, walkers and leisure seekers.
»In addition to technological progress, the design of urban space is also to be understood as an impulse-giving element in the mobility turnaround. [...] The design agency 3deluxe saw the future vacuum of space redistribution as a unique opportunity to rebalance the basic function of street space with sustainable scales.«
CSILLA LETAY – REDAKTIONSLEITUNG POLIS MAGAZIN, JANUAR 2021
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