MTV WEST 1ST PRIZE Conversion, Heidelberg, cooperation with ts/c Till Schweizer, Heidelberg // Marcel Heller // Uwe Weisshuhn // ATP sustain // monokrom

Our team was able to win first prize in the competition for conversion areas in Heidelberg's Südstadt.


1st place in the area "Mark Twain Village West"


2nd place in the area "Sickingenplatz"


RNZ, 26.03.2018: Winning designs for "Sickingenstraße" and "MTV West" chosen - Intelligently placed buildings, lots of green spaces.

Urban integration

The building structure is deliberately kept permeable at the edges of the conversion area. This creates transitions, into the open landscape or to the heterogeneous quarters, in the surrounding area. They allow views, pathways and flow. The consistent alignment of the buildings with each other makes it possible to arrange a public square as a prelude at both starting points of the development strip and to form an open, green centre in each quarter.

Alongside the parking garage, in the south of MTV West, an open play landscape leads as a green band into the open field and integrates existing path connections and allotments.

Apartment mix

To achieve this permeability, a bound system of row buildings and point buildings is chosen. The apartments are basically all 1 m above street level. A semi-public residential path is planned in the middle of the block for access and meeting space for the residents. The private gardens are oriented according to the position of the sun and are arranged on the underground garages or an embankment including heavy parapet as noise protection, e.g. to Sickingen Street.

Noise protection

The existing values and conditions for noise immissions from the street, railway and some businesses were integrated into the design, in which primarily the arrangement of the buildings, as well as floor plan design and typology were adapted to this. Attention was paid to the orientation of areas requiring protection, such as living, sleeping, working, and daycare centers, into less noise-exposed areas, and to orienting development and ancillary areas towards the street/noise. In areas where buildings are exposed to noise from several sides or the orientation is contrary to other criteria (energy, daylight, comfort), additional design measures were taken to reduce noise pollution (sound barriers, closable balconies). The impact of the police on the residential area was deliberately counteracted by the decoupled location of the parking spaces and access.

Open space networking

Open landscape references and circular routes through the quarters create links and provide for open spaces of different characters. Central public spaces, such as Sickingen Square to the south and Mark Twain Square to the north, mark preludes to the development ribbon. A variety of uses and a high degree of greening create spaces with a high quality of stay. This is where people meet for coffee, drop off their children at kindergarten or daycare, or have a chat with acquaintances. The public green corridor, in the west of the Mark Twain Platz, offers free space for romping, kicking, picnicking, integrates existing path connections and provides an unobstructed view of the landscape.

Semi-public areas within the quarter are combined into one space by path connections. The level difference of one meter to the public space is overcome by stairs and ramps. Due to the height difference, these areas attain a degree of independence and intimacy. Qualitative open spaces create identity. Here, meadows become stages, community gardens become communication spaces and play areas become meeting places. Whether lingering on the green seating steps, picnicking on the lawn or racing bobby cars around the block - there is something here for every generation. Ramps ensure unrestricted accessibility in the neighborhoods. Whether wheelchair user or fire truck - all are considered.

Who wants to enjoy a coffee in peace in your own garden on the terrace, is exactly right in the row houses. The backfilling of the gardens creates distance to the public core points in the middle of the blocks, which are one metre lower, at street level.

Soil management

The excavation of the basements and underground garages ends at a level of -1.90. This excavation is to be used for the backfilling of the inner areas of the neighbourhoods to a height of approx. 1.00 m. This is to be used for the backfilling of the inner areas of the neighbourhoods. As the road surface will be closed, it is possible to reinstate slightly contaminated soil on site. Only serious soil contaminations must be removed.

The existing asphalt and concrete surfaces are, taken up, granulated and colored as a path surface again provided that the existing materials are not polluted they can be used, depending upon situation, as recycling asphalt or as concrete recycling. Pavement areas are designed to be barrier-free. Surface water within the neighbourhoods is collected centrally in the green neighbourhood centres, retained and infiltrated into the ground in a delayed manner. On the public squares, the rainwater is bundled and infiltrated in infiltration trenches.

Water use

Due to the high proportion of green and infiltrative surfaces, including green roof surfaces, there is a high level of rainwater retention and reduction of the amount of water to be discharged into the sewer.

An additional feature is the avoidance of additional rainwater sewers on the building sites through natural rainwater drainage via the surface design. In the form of troughs, designed as a stream system, the rainwater runs to the collection cistern and from there into the public sewer.

Optionally, the water from the cisterns can also be used as grey water for watering and cleaning the outdoor facilities.

An energy use related to water is envisaged through the use of wastewater heat recovery systems (FEKA manholes), which is particularly suitable for residential uses where high volumes of warm wastewater are available.

Transportation concept

In principle, the street layout is adopted from the master plan and supplemented. Public spaces for all users will be created at the two central squares Sickingen Platz and Mark Twain Platz. By paving over the roadway in these areas, the prelude to the development ribbon is marked, also visually and haptically for the motorist. Within the volume the cycle track is led on one side in a width of 3m.

The internal roads of the individual quarters are all passable with passenger cars, emergency vehicles and furniture vans, nevertheless declared as resident roads. The disposal with garbage cars happens exclusively about the outside driveways, only the inward lying houses have therefore the obligation to the emptying days the garbage cans to the street to move.

Resting traffic

Public visitor parking lots are arranged, as indicated in the concept, along the streets.

Each block has 1-2 central parking garages, which lie with -1,60 and are naturally ventilated.

They supply as central garage the quarters with the necessary parking lots. The ramps are deliberately integrated into the head buildings so that the sound insulation and the outdoor facilities do not suffer from the often disadvantageous ramp systems.

At the same time, they increase the protection against ice and snow.

All apartment buildings have direct barrier-free access to the staircases. The terraced houses have a central staircase, here are garbage and bicycle storage facilities of the terraced house groups.

Energy concept

Main objective is the formation of an overall concept, which includes resilient, independent individual systems, but can act together as a total system and further increase efficiency. As a contribution to the goal of the climate-neutral city of Heidelberg, essential steps were taken in the design - from the shaping of the building structure, improvement of the local climate and passive measures, to active measures in the area of TGA and energy supply. As individual block units (fields), connected buildings each have a connection to the local heating and electricity grid, as well as the following systems for integrating renewable energy and existing waste heat from the building and the environment: hybrid collectors on the roof (heat and electricity) and an ice storage and AWRG shaft for heat supply. The systems are integrated into the central heat pump, per block, and distributed via individual prefabricated shafts to the residential units, where decentralized hot water preparation and optional ventilation with WRG are located in a cabinet shoring. The decentralisation of the systems enables high flexibility as well as energy efficiency. The combination of the networks into an anergy network would mean a further step towards climate neutrality by using synergy effects of different building categories and existing temperatures even more efficiently.