The 105th Hamburg district, Oberbillwerder, is well on its way to become one of Europe’s most ambitious urban developments. The district, just 15 minutes outside Hamburg, is pre-certified for DGNB Platinum. Oberbillwerder is the largest overall development in Germany since Hafencity and covers a total area of 360 hectares. Fully developed, the district will house around 1 million m2 with more than 7,000 homes, 4,000 jobs, new schools, day-care centres, sports facilities, etc. Among the key focal areas of the development are future mobility, green infrastructure and energy supply. Other key elements are water management and integrated climate adaptation.
A well founded strategy for integrated landscape qualities provides the potential to integrate water management and climate adaptation more visibly in the public spaces, which provides tangible value in the everyday life of the area. It provides alternative possibilities for being in the city, for re-creational activities that hard surfaces simply do not offer. And as a bonus, nature and landscape in almost all its forms are subtle creators of identity, simply because of the many opportunities offered by plantation – to vary composition, volume, density and moods.