CLEAR VILLAGE well-being analysis in North-Germany
In April, CLEAR VILLAGE has been part of an urban regeneration project in a deprived area in Kiel, Germany, by bringing community involvement and engagement to a real estate refurbishment project.
What? Well-being Analysis
Under the header ‘what Kieler want’, CLEAR VILLAGE ventured to Kiel to make a well-being analysis of a community there and distil solutions to help the future, they wish for, underway. Our role was to allow a planned makeover to be informed by residents and have as much participation from them as possible. It will also revolve around making the change visible beyond the building and its surrounding areas and creating a story, which will be exhibited at the finishing of the makeover.
Quick and effective, we hope to open the doors in early summer and tell a good story of how disempowered residents can be part of improving their life and that of a whole fragile neighbourhood facing extreme socio-economic stress.
Where? Kiel – Germany
Kiel is a City historically dominated by its proximity to the Baltic Sea located in the north of Germany. In fact, Kiel is built up on both shores of the Bay, making water and water carried trade and traffic very present in the City. On the western shore is the old market town, main infrastructural, educational and financial institutions. The Eastern shore is accommodating maritime production of all sorts private, commercial and military. Primarily because of the important military U-boat production here, the eastern shore was a strategic target for the allied forces under WWII and was heavily bombed. In the fifties, a built environment was hastily reinforced to lodge the shipyard workers and keep the industry running in Kiel.
It is one of those estates, very close to the city centre, which we are focusing on in this analysis. To this day, the neighbourhood has a connection to both water and shipyards. But also hasn’t been untouched by German demographic development over the last couple decades, creating a dichotomy of ‘the old’ and ‘the new’ residents.
To complicate matters on a community level, councils have been are withdrawing from housing and selling property to private real estate companies over the last decade as a part of a larger asset management strategy. As a result of that, much authority on how neighbourhoods evolve are left with a private operator.
This particular context is unfortunate and somewhat depressing to think about, however typical for European Cities of this size and we truly believe that we can do something about it!
Together with CLEAR VILLAGE’s incubator Etikstudio, we analyse the existing community by listening and subsequently seed incremental changes in the neighbourhood. We work with all stakeholders, from pensioners to real estate developers on a design brief that connects refurbishing of the buildings to a wider regenerational plan for the public space. We simultaneously consider sustainability of the built environment, desirability of homes, community resilience and identity.
And together with all stakeholders we aim to transform the area into a lively one.
Check back on the website or to the next newsletter, where we’ll share the findings of the well-being analysis and please click here to see more clips from the project.
