Cospuden

Kunstlandshaft Cospuden,

Urban landscape infrastructure realisation project for the urbanisation of a site on the edge of the former Cospuden open-cast coal mine near Leipzig, Germany.

1st prize in an invited international urban design competition, 1997, 1st prize in an invited investors competition, in collaboration with Edgar Lössnitz, HochTief Build1ing GmbH Leipzig, April, 1999.

Gestaltungsplanung completed March, 2000, Construction completed of the new lake edge territory and urban infrastructure of the town of Zobiker, Feb. 2001.

The design proposal is an artificial landscape arising from the manmade excavation landscape of the region. The landscape history of the place has been read and used as the generator of the design. We have thought of various times that have given form to the landscape:

• 1st landscape - the expansive flatland river wetland that was formed by glacial action;
• 2nd landscape - the 18th and 19th Century agricultural settlement of the land with landowners’ villas and small villages;
• 3rd landscape - the large scale artificial nature of the process of the coal mining excavations made during the 20th Century;
• 4th landscape - the new urban expansion of the city of Leipzig and the future region of lakes that will result during the next 40-50 years as the former mining holes become filled with ground water.

These four landscapes are the basis of the design strategy. The Cospuden project is a prototype for the design of the shorelines within a vast new region of future lakes. The former Cospuden mine will become the first new lake in the region, and the nearest lake to the center of the city of Leipzig. A new wetland between the former agricultural village of Zöbigker and the lake forms a precedent relationship for the region between the urban village and the water. The lake-front of the new urban village is formed by the new apartment ‘solitaires’ forming a distinct edge to the wetland starting from the baroque villa down to the new harbour ramp. The edge of the wetland to the lake is formed by the promenade dams, 2 long lines in the lake landscape, a memory of the sharp straight cutting edges of the mining holes.

The ‘solitaires’ or ‘lake villas’ as some like to call these buildings could be seen as large stone bolders sinking in to the wetland, a reference to the vast geological landscape made by the glaciers and the sea.

The longhouses behind the solitaires in contrast are hovering above the ground of the former garden of the baroque villa forming trapezoid shaped spaces that open up views to the lake. The longhouses could be said to dance in the former park.

For the old village the design provides an urban repair strategy similar to that of Luigi Snozzi in Monte Carasso, Switzerland.