Midfield, Expert opinion Masterplan (LUX)

project development of a Masterplan with a view to a high-quality urbanistic rearrangement of the target area responsible provider of the process Ministère du Développement durable, Ministère de l‘intérieur, Ville de Luxembourg et Commune de Hesperange planning WW+ architektur + management sàrl, Esch/Alzette (LUX) - Terra Nova, München (GER) - Luxplan, Capellen (LUX) - Tramp Luxembourg S.àr.l., Capellen (LUX) - Dr. Jürgen Aring, Meckenheim (GER) gf 852.226 m² costs 550.000.000 € VAT included

Masterplan Midfield

The main objective of the master plan was to achieve a high-quality development of the area “Midfield” (located in the south of the capital city) and its neighbouring regions, concerning urbanism, traffic and architecture.
The size of the planning region is 76,6 ha and it consists of the areas Midfield, Howald and another are to be considered, which is 149,2 ha large and encloses the region “Grossfeld”, which is currently also in a planning phase. Midfield is a central, identity-generating, urban connection axis, which offers public spaces of a quality, also for pedestrians and cyclists. In order to create a representative city entrance from the south, the arrangement of an attractive urban and rentable utilisation structure in the area of Midfield had to be linked to the design of the railway station surroundings as well as to the restructuring and revaluation of the adjacent area Howald.

Idea

With the process of poly-centralization for the city of Luxembourg, the planned “Porte de Hollerich” in the south-west will be a quarter with city entrance function in the near future, in addition to the “Porte de l’Europe” on the Kirchberg. Supported by the extension of the railway network with the new “Gare péripherique” and the urban planning for other new quarters (e.g. the possible “Porte de la Vallée de l’Alzette in the North), the new quarter Midfield/Howald/Großfeld called “Porte de la Grande Région” will be another qualified sub centre in the South of the city area.

The city entrance is marked by landmarks with a distance effect as modern city gates and identification points. The concept of poly-centrality is additionally supported by existing green bands and green bands to be developed, which are pulled into the centre via the city entries. There will be an urban green band (“Railway park”) directed towards the central station and enabling a kind of air conduction track into the city centre. The importance of this green band for the Porte de la Grand Région can be compared to that of the Petrusse valley for the Porte de Hollerich.

Urban structure - connector Midfield

Midfield with its area of 20,4 ha and a potential construction volume of approx. 367.000 m² is too small for a new centre.
It needs to be connected to Großfeld and Howald by the means of bridges, streets and the new tramline, not only to minimize the divisive effect of the railway and the motorway but especially to create a big sub centre.The new railway station is the central element and the symbolic centre of the quarter. It’s due to support the movement of the Modal-Split for the benefit of the public transport and to be the business card of the new public transport in Luxembourg. The connection to the adjacent territories Großfeld and Howald is achieved by moving existing and shaping forms from there further on to Midfield, thus creating characteristic connections. The most important east-west streets from Großfeld are moved further on to Midfield by maintaining the direction and the road profile.

There’s also an east-west structure taken over from Howald, the so-called “green veins”. The just mentioned east-west structures (streets, green veins) are crossed by south-north structures, which are the deeper located railway lines and the Avenue generated from the motorway. In the centre it’s a wide green band, being slightly bent towards the green landscape and creating a relation to the close-by (city-)landscape in the north and in the south.
The east-west structures, being slightly displaced, and the north-south lines interfere with each other in Midfield, thus creating polygonal spatial structures as a basis for unconformable blocks. The block structure is lead to the edges of Midfield (the traffic routes) in order to make maximum use of the small area, insulate the centre from traffic noise and support the development of an urban embossed Avenue instead of the end of the motorway. At the same time this block structure supports the development of a specific area identity in Midfield without letting the quarter decouple from its neighbours.