Basel Dreispitzareal, Urban Study
The Dreispitz, an urban site covering some fifty hectares, is privately owned by a single proprietor. Originally used as a goods warehouse and later as a customs depot, its development, governed by unconventional rules, has led to a fascinating hodgepodge of architectures and uses whose ugliness borders on the beautiful. The streets bear names that conjure the wider world: Helsinki Strasse, Florenz Strasse, Oslo Strasse. There are railroad tracks and a strictly gridded street plan, similar to an American city. The area has now developed into an experimental melting pot for a variety of urban activities—a place of rampant growth not just in terms of its unplanned, rambling vegetation but in social terms as well. Because a location of this kind is so untypical and extremely rare in Switzerland, we were more than happy to take on the commissioned urban study. One of our aims was to propose planning phases that would not be governed by the dictates of a rigid master plan, but rather by open-ended processes that would reinforce the existing urban diversity while also allowing for a substantial increase in density.
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