The new “City Lounge” with its prominent location in Heidelberg’s Bahnstadt, is a contemporary interpretation of the urban block. The individual structures respond specifically to their respective locations and, as an ensemble, form a clearly legible spatial figure. In relation to the urban space, the project presents itself with a well-proportioned, inner-city architectural language that makes do with few but accentuated architectural details. On the ground floors, an urban base is realized, activating the urban space and bringing the public together with the new development. The inner courtyard, on the other hand, forms the actual “city lounge” – a landscaped, differentiated courtyard world, full of life and opportunities for interaction.

At the southern bridgehead of the Czerny Bridge, the head building forms the prelude to the quarter and formulates a gateway situation with the planned building (C1) on the opposite side of the street. The result is a spatial frame of the Czerny Square, doing justice to its function as an entrance to the city. By slightly stepping back from the building line, the head building receives a frontal zone which does justice to its use and formulates an entrance gesture into the greened courtyard of the “City Lounge”.  Along the Czerny Ring, the development takes up the grain of the surrounding buildings and interweaves the inner world of the “City Lounge” with the urban space of the Czerny Ring by means of structural joints. With its public use, the structure on the square by the water tower is an important, representative building block in the urban fabric. The chamfered corner gives it a clear orientation to the square and articulates it as a building with predominantly public uses. The elongated volume along the railroad tracks protects the inner courtyard from sound emissions. The articulation of the façade breaks up the length of the volume and creates a reference to the urban grain of the Bahnstadt locale. Here, too, structural joints provide the necessary link between the inner courtyard world and the lower-lying green corridor along the cycle path and the Max-Planck-Ring to the northeast. Free-standing building volumes, the so-called “Co-nnectors”, structure the inner courtyard and play on their direct surroundings and the buildings connected to them.

The “City-Lounge” is an ensemble of independent buildings, which in their interplay create a complex neighbourhood structure. They specify and hierarchise the urban space in their immediate surroundings. The idea of creating a place where culture, technology, innovation and diversity come together becomes the design-defining theme. Flexible building structures make it possible to create modern co-living typologies while also allowing for classical forms of living. Collaborative working and living does not stop at the façade, rather the entire courtyard becomes a co-working and co-living area, offering its residents and neighbours in the surrounding neighbourhood a diverse space of possibilities, which is complemented by commercial and public uses. In its appearance and materiality, the project refers to the industrial past of the site and evokes associations with the factory and railroad buildings of the 20th century, some of which can still be found today.