Play_Land - Youth club in Oberhausen-Holten

As part of Emscherkunst 2013, the PLAY_LAND project was created in the area between Bahnstraße, Flugstraße and Emscherkanal. In a team with the Slovenian artist Apolonija Šušteršič and the Bochum architects Banz Riecks, this youth club with skate park and children's playground was developed. The actual building slides under a green hill in the "unfolded landscape" and separates the areas of children's play and skater park. An independent place for the young people is created, which is turned away from the adjacent residential development by the raised terrain and does not interfere with it.

German Landscape Architecture Award 2017 (Category Sport, Play, Movement)
German Play Space Award 2015 (A main prize in the 2nd rank)
Award of good buildings of the BDA right Lower Rhine 2014.

"A youth club is not a kindergarten. How young people currently spend their
leisure time on boards, bikes and blades regularly leads to
conflicts with the citizens of the surrounding area. This plant succeeds through
a clever urban intervention in the immediate vicinity
of a residential neighborhood to create the young people a place of their own, which
they neither as bullies exclude, nor betulich an adapted
behavior expected.
This was achieved by a structure that disappears to the residential street under a
green, park-like hill. Only to the other front,
to the Emscher and to the opposite industrial area, the
building becomes recognizable by unadorned concrete walls and vandal-proof glass facades barricaded with
canthus wood. This vertical
contour projects over the edge of the slope and performs the function of a
protective parapet.
The exterior landscaping continues the theme of concrete walls. A long
stretched courtyard offers on the one hand the skaters the necessary obstacles
for their stunts, on the other hand smaller children find stable playground equipment there.
This concrete equipment can also be read as land art, as freely
placed architectural building blocks that sculpturally
determine the open space without users.
The interior of the actual youth center is intended for appropriation.
The architects have created a raw housing - without
pedagogical finger pointing or well-intentioned request, how it should
continue. The hard-wearing, undemanding
sanitary rooms with their surface-mounted pipes are reminiscent of a
correctional facility. And that's exactly the aesthetic that continues in the meantime.
A used dumpster makes a counter, beverage crates connected with arm-thick, rusty
pipes become bar stools, pallets protrude
as shelves from the wall, discarded sofas and refrigerator-sized
speaker boxes wait for things to finally get real.
No comfort? Yes, there is, there is even underfloor heating."

From the jury text for the "Award for Good Buildings" from the BDA 2014.

Award Sport, Game, MovementGerman Landscape Architecture Award 2017

Jury verdict: The open spaces of the newly built youth centre in Oberhausen-Holten are designed as a play landscape open to all generations. The design Play_Land succeeds in spatially cleverly solving the expected conflict between the surrounding residential development and the loud play use: The building becomes part of a landscape softly shaped, partly strictly built topography. Along the vertical contour, which acts as a noise barrier, play facilities are created that fit in very well spatially. The terrain modelling running above the building becomes part of the extended play landscape, which offers diverse spaces and atmospheres.

The interweaving of building construction and open space generates high spatial and functional quality with simple but very well-chosen means. The direct juxtaposition and coexistence of the various user groups as well as the good combination of play and sports facilities are valued as a forward-looking approach. At the same time, the design convinces with its "raw simplicity" and "loving attention to detail". The various play areas and equipment are very convincingly elaborated and implemented.