Master plan for Zell-am-Mosel riverside public spaces and town hall project - International restricted landscape, urban planning and architecture competition - IV prize

The town of Zell upon the Mosel is one of the historical focal points of the cross-border Mosel tourist circuit, which has been linked to travel culture and wine production for centuries. In Zell the city center is the river banks and their coastline. The urban challenge is to envision a strategy to produce a new linear public space, integrating an important number of parking areas, and capable to manage the seasonal flooding of the riverbanks. The project should transform the status of the area, from that of a service space (today a mineral parking lot) into a system of green public spaces, connected to the local topography and capable of hosting the mass events of the high tourist season. The public spaces redesign is an opportunity for the city to create a new multi-service building sector, with two volumes, one for the City Hall and another one for the central bank of the city and commerces. In correspodence to these new architectures a project of square is expected.This restricted international competition was played out in two stages: 1. the proposal of an integral urban and landscape project of the water line and the town hall square; 2. a competition for the architectural project of the town hall and its adjacent public space.The project proposes a strategy of simultaneous transformation of the mobility system and the landscape. The pockets of parking requested by the city are integrated into the landscape design and a system of mineral terraces organize the relationship between internal urban axis and water line. The project integrates the transformation of public spaces, the outline of a new town hall, and a hotel, contributing to the opening of the urban heart towards the Moselle. The project strategy aims to minimize the mineral spaces, and to allow the infiltration on the 90% of the project area. The space is defined by clear and minimalist actions that make the new surfaces available to the citizens of Zell and visitors legible and appropriate.