HafenCity Hamburg wins ULI 2013 Global Awards for Excellence

As urban planner, KCAP is facing the challenges of ecology and constantly strives to develop futureproof and resilient cities for future generations. With our broad multidisciplinary approach to complex design issues, we ensure that sustainability and resilience strategies are incorporated and addressed in a holistic manner on all levels of our designs. To share that experience and show how we are designing solutions for smart and resilient cities, Jeroen Dirckx is joining the Smart Cities mission to New York. The multidisciplinary Dutch delegation will visit and contribute to the Smart Cities New York conference that will take place from May 13th – 15th. In the workshop ‘Climate Resilient Cities: The Dutch Approach’, Jeroen will explain our expertise on resilience with among others the example of our urban plan for HafenCity Hamburg. HafenCity is Europe’s largest inner-city redevelopment project. Being transformed from a former port area into a new city district, HafenCity enjoys a magnificent location at the water. At the same time it has to cope with the risks being located in the flood zone of the river Elbe. The urban plan, that was developed in cooperation with ASTOC starting in 2001, concepts for flood prevention have been integrated right from the start. Instead of building costly dikes that would have also negatively influenced the attractiveness of this unique waterfront location, the area has been designed flood proof. The most important means are that the buildings are built on mounds of 8 - 9 meters above sea levels and streets and bridges are elevated to more or less the same height. This ensures that even during severe storms, the buildings are be protected from flooding and traffic can continue. To add to the attractiveness of the waterfront location, the promenades enjoy the proximity to the water as they remain on the ...

The City of Hamburg has earned a "Special Mention" by the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize 2018. The biannual international award honours outstanding achievements and contributions to the creation of liveable, vibrant and sustainable urban communities around the world. Our own HafenCity project is one of the central transformation initiatives by the City of Hamburg that helped earn the award. Regarding the HafenCity project, the jury lauds: "Hamburg is recognised as an extraordinary port city that has overcome planning challenges to become an attractive and welcoming city of opportunities for a population that now includes a growing number of immigrants. It has very effectively evolved from previous conventional practice of urban expansion on the fringe through the successful implementation of its inner city densification strategy to cater to increased demand for housing and urban mobility from its growing population. The new HafenCity is an excellent demonstration of this strategy. The former underused harbour and industrial space located next to the historical "Speicherstadt" warehouse district has been transformed from a dilapidated area into a dynamic mix-use district of urban housing, workplaces and recreation areas. Recognising that built heritage is an important aspect that adds to the quality of life in an ever-changing environment, the city placed great emphasis on the urban design of the new district to relate to the old city, and to align vistas with the spires of the old churches while also sensitively providing protection against flooding and rising waters." You can find the full jury report here.

At the Building Green conference in Copenhagen on November 2nd and 3rd, Jeroen Dirckx, urban planner and associate at KCAP, will introduce KCAP's approach to sustainable urban design and present three international cases as keynote speaker. Since its founding in 1989, KCAP is focussing on realising sustainable urban neighbourhoods with a strong social coherence. With the GWL Terrain in Amsterdam, KCAP pioneered in designing a car-free living environment with communal facilities and urban farming. In Hamburg, we planned the flood-resilient HafenCity urban expansion, one of the largest brownfield developments in Europe, which received a TOD Gold Award. More recently, KCAP leads the multi-disciplinary design team of the CO2-neutral FredericiaC project in Denmark. This transformation of a polluted former harbour area into a vital new city district includes themes like climate change adaptation, urban prosperity, energy efficiency, urban farming, participation, temporary landscape and social cohesion. 

KCAP is one of a range of Dutch architects published in 'Discover Benelux', a special of the Business Inflight & Members magazine of among others British Airways, Swiss Air and the business lounges of KLM and Air France. Click here for the online version. (KCAP on p. 36)  

Students of the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design interviewed Kees Christiaanse about the furture of urbanisation. Click here to read the interview.

HafenCity Hamburg is one of nine best projects worldwide that received the TOD Standard in Gold. KCAP’s urban plan for the eco-friendly GWL Terrein in Amsterdam is certified with the TOD Standard in Silver. A global catalog of 50 urban developments on six continents was released yesterday by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). TOD (Transit-Oriented Development) Standard is an assessment, recognition and policy guidance tool uniquely focused on integrating sustainable transport and land use planning and design.  It shows which projects connect people conveniently, affordably and safely to jobs, shopping, education and other opportunities that cities provide. The evaluation is based on eight principles for better streets and better cities - walk, clycle, connect, transit, mix, densify, compact and shift - which when put into practice, will create vibrant, low-carbon cities where people want to live and work. The certificate gold rewards urban development projects that are global leaders in all aspects of integrated transport and urban design. Silver marks projects that meet most of the objectives of best practice to a high level of quality. Last year, ITDP released the first version of the TOD Standard. The Standard is endorsed by UN Habitat and the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), and is supported by ClimateWorks Foundation. More information about TOD Standard can be found on ITDP’s website.

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) has selected winners in the 35th annual ULI Global Awards for Excellence competition, widely recognized as the land use industry’s most prestigious recognition program. The projects were honored in a ceremony at the ULI Fall Meeting in Chicago. HafenCity Hamburg is one of the twelve awarded developments.

The German public channel ZDF produced a documentary about Hafencity in their program 'Länderspiegel' in which they show various German cities. It shows nicely the current status of the development. Click here to watch the documentary (in German).

The masterplan by KCAP/ASTOC is nominated as one of 10 international projects for prestigious Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design, organised by the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, USA. Established in 1986, the Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design is the foremost award recognizing achievement in this field. The Prize is awarded every two years to recognize excellence in urban design with an emphasis on projects that contribute to the public realm of a city and improve the quality of urban life. The jury will announce the winner in March 2013.

Today, the new book over the first decade of Hafencity Hamburg will be officially launched in Hamburg. 

Public Polish TV will broadcast a documentary about waterfront developments. The main focus is on the Polish city Gdynia and makes reference to the cities of Hamburg and Rotterdam. A few experts are interviewed in the documentary, among which KCAP urban planners Frank Werner and Jeroen Dirckx.View the trailer here.