BAD SODEN'S STRONG SPRINGS FOR EVERYONE

The spa life in Bad Soden, which originated from its healing springs, needs revitalization. But how can new life be breathed into the small town? By tapping into new springs! For there are many types of springs: springs that promote community, springs that focus on health, or quite literally the healing springs that still remind us of the town's influential spa history. With the help of these springs, two streams are established along the east-west axis, serving as pathways fed by the various springs. On the one hand, there is the everyday stream, which emphasizes quick movement and daily activities. When health and relaxation are the focus, the spa path is used. It is deliberately designed to be more leisurely. All sections are designed to be barrier-free and inclusive.

These streams ultimately connect three different core areas: First, the large open space on the slope, focusing on informal encounters in a high-quality landscape. Second, the area around the former Herbst factory, which will be developed into a health manufacturing quarter with a focus on work, health education, and community. And third, the former wasteland at Huttenschloss in the east, which will provide space for a growing population as a rural-family housing model.

With these forward-looking springs for a neighborly, productive, and innovative small-town life, Bad Soden is poised to play an important role in the region and to open up new sources of work and innovation as a center for health education.

Overall, a vision is created for an inclusive, sustainable, and site-specific Bad Soden that can continue to develop its identity in the future through the interplay of new and old springs.

The building volume is divided into three parts. The base, which adapts to the adjacent railroad line in terms of height and materiality and at the same time divides the open space into a workshop and forecourt. This serves as a link to the city and functions as an impulse for the quarter north of the main station. The horizontal structure takes up the edges of the neighboring buildings. The high point generates a superordinate reference to the opposite side of the track bed and shapes Hannover's cityscape.

An interwoven first floor and second floor are accessible to the public. Via the foyer, a partially open fundus, flexibly usable stage structures and the Werkhof, visitors are offered various insights into the facets of the play and the associated constructed illusion.

The high point houses the university's internal uses. In addition to the administration and seminar rooms, studio stages and rehearsal rooms are located there. Galleries with additional access enable visual relationships between the floors and promote communication among the students.

The different uses of both building volumes are connected by the red-pigmented concrete façade based on the floor-to-ceiling plinth, whose color scheme is based on North German brick. The interplay of open and closed façade elements in the high point is accentuated by isolated disturbances. The round window, for example, reflects the elevated studio stage to the outside. Towards the railroad tracks, a projection takes over the function of the electricity pylon and thus integrates excellently into the urban situation.

The horizontal volume is structured by a vertical division. By means of recesses in the facades, the appearance also varies during the course of the day due to a changing cast of shadows.

The design makes use of the advantages of the open block edge, such as noise protection, the separation of the public and private spheres, and also creates a “campus character": a dynamic frequency that allows and encourages encounters.

Departmental Award for the Best Master's Thesis in the Winter Semester 2023/24

Giuseppe Antonio Raffaele and Jana Schweitzer are awarded for their urban planning thesis on the topic “Spa Life in Bad Soden: On the Healthy Small Town,” published by the Department of Design and Urban Planning (Prof. Dr. Martin Knöll).

The central task focused on the question of how small towns can be designed to promote health and quality of life amidst rapid demographic and structural changes. The small town of Bad Soden-Salmünster is integrated into the Main-Kinzig district as a “pearl” through the work of Raffaele and Schweitzer. This lays the foundation for inter-municipal cooperation and regional networks, spatially supported by the interface of the two core town parts in the Kinzig Valley. This interface takes on the role of a regional center.First, the infrastructure of all town parts is expanded to a minimum level using a toolbox. Subsequently, five thematic clusters, characteristic of this small town, are developed across the town parts: Culture and Education; Recreation; Tourism; Economy; and Mobility. The bundling of competencies and networking of the clusters strengthens and expands existing resources, represented on the newly created platform—open and accessible to all at the central interface. From this point, the individual clusters gain further significance. The newly established “Agri-Culture Center” revitalizes an industrial vacancy to impart knowledge about nature, agriculture, and nutrition. At the newly created Small Town Campus, regional topics are addressed in research and teaching. The adjacent vacant clinic building is used as a care training center.

Starting from the platform, a showcase for the attractiveness of the healthy, sustainable, and livable small town of Bad Soden-Salmünster is created, raising awareness among visitors and residents about the quality of life on-site, which allows the town to grow in all areas.