Studio Genta Architetture
© by Studio Genta Architetture
Viale Venezia 2f, Pavia
ABSTRACT
The former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin has a strong symbolic meaning to the city. With fundamental participation during critical political events such as the World War II and the Cold War, its memory is strongly related to historical facts that shaped the nowadays society. After the airport operations officially closed in 2008, the enormous building and its extensive airfield has been explored in all sorts of uses – cultural and sports events and other diverse purposes have taken place on the site. In 2009, the municipality opened the field to public, turning it into the largest park of Berlin. During the migrant crisis of 2015 though, when numerous refugees from Syria, Iraq and other countries came to Europe, the former hangars were converted into a temporary reception center, hosting around 2500 people in provisional cubicles and tents. With this substantial and diverse background, this place hosts a significant value and potential of interpretation. This work aims firstly to research the significance of such massive vacant area inside a city like Berlin by understanding the borders which define the void of this place and guarantee its most valued condition. Additionally, the project tries to respond to the local context and also to the current global migration issue, which has been transforming societies and cities significantly and has a close relation to the site’s memory. A sequence of various spatial conditions shape the border of this area and one of them tries, then, to explore different arrangements of housing in an international neighborhood, the importance of social integration in urban areas and how architecture plays an important role on that.