It begins with a vacant site, a place that has ground to a halt – an old mill, disused railway lines, empty ports, overgrown industrial premises – and with a question that is more relevant now than ever: How do we want to live in future? Salzburg, Bergamo and Copenhagen are three cities that are leading by example. With projects conceived of as circular and turning old into new, rather than simply perpetuating linear construction. Uses are transformed and adapted to requirement. Work, life and nature are no longer separated. Now, they are consciously linked – sustainably, carefully, circularly. This is how vacancies are creating history.
Everything from mills to mousepads: Rauchmühle district, Salzburg.
The Rauchmühle (lit. smoke mill) sits at the edge of Salzburg Old Town. Home for more than seven centuries to a mill that ground grains into flour, it is now inspiring the future, with super-modern apartments, plus workspaces for the digital and creative industries which promote innovative ways of working, networking and dialogue. Redesigned, renatured riparian landscapes along the Glan and Mühlbach rivers connect people to nature. The guiding principle was “revitalising and renaturing” the earth and soil. And the result is an inner-city area that has been brought back to life, consolidated and upgraded. Instead of being torn down, the existing buildings – including the silo and the old mill house – were revitalised and adapted for new uses. The challenge? Maintaining their historic essence without sacrificing their connection to contemporary architecture and infrastructure. “The interplay between different influences and actors is what breathes life into any diverse district,” says PRISMA Holding AG who were charged with pulling off the Rauchmühle District project. The planning and design for the project involved seven architecture firms.
Smarter everything: New urban living space in Bergamo.
Built on a barren industrial brownfield where previously you’d never hear a word like ‘sustainability’ over the hum of machinery, ChorusLife is a smart, trailblazing urban locale which is energy self-sufficient. The vision: to reclaim the area. The location was renovated instead of just using the land, with old materials reused and contaminated soil undergoing treatment. The 70,000 square-metre site was redesigned, with apartments, offices, a hotel, a health centre, an arena, green spaces, shared spaces and paths for pedestrians, instead of roads for cars which now stay in the underground garage. This residential area is also energy self-sufficient thanks to a combined heat and power station and smart grids which allow residents to use renewable energies flexibly. Excess energy is fed into the main grid – saving 1,347 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Rainwater is collected and used for green spaces – an important contribution in an age of increasing water scarcity in the region. The challenge? The concept had to be modular and capable of adapting to local conditions, including in other areas. This has made this city of the future a pioneer project and one of the biggest urban regeneration projects in Italy.
Circular everything: The Nordhavn district, Copenhagen.
Everything different and back in its place: an old port is turned into a new residential area, a mill into a source of energy, and office roofs into gardens. The former industrial port of Nordhavn in Copenhagen is an example of how to do urban development in today’s age: old integrated into new and resources saved and reproduced, for quality of life and quality of work. Towers of shipping containers have been replaced with towering apartment blocks, workspaces and areas for recreation which exceed expectation. The Marmormolen project is creating an innovative office and commercial complex which will be the largest timber building in Denmark. The challenge? Rethinking living and working: “A workplace used to be very inward-looking and cut off but today, people want to feel like they’re part of a diverse community and to engage with their surroundings,” explains Mikkel Eskildsen, Lead Design Architect at Danish firm Henning Larsen which envisioned the design. It’s why the ground floor remains open to the public: a canteen during the day, a cultural space and market in the evening. Even the roofs are part of the circular concept, with greening, beehives and rain water stores.