2301 Park of Encounters Heidelberg

Location:
Heidelberg, Germany

Project Phases:
Competition 2018, 1st Prize; Realization 2018 – 2022

Client:
City of Heidelberg, IBA Heidelberg

Planning Team:
Studio Vulkan Landscape Architecture, Robin Winogrond, Faktorgrün, Denkstatt Sàrl, IBV Hüsler

Photography:
Daniela Valentini, Studio Vulkan

Details:

• [concrete]
• [furniture]
• [park]
• [reuse]

Between Memory and Reinterpretation

“The Other Park” in Heidelberg is a site steeped in complex history – once home to NS, NATO, and military institutions. What remains are the artifacts of a heavy past. Yet rather than being erased or concealed, the site is thoughtfully transformed – reframed with a sense of irony and interpreted anew with a subtle, knowing eye.

In 2018, Studio Vulkan won the competition initiated by the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Heidelberg. The task was to reimagine a former military compound as a public space for the emerging “Knowledge City,” integrating it into the civic realm. Crucially, the design was not to overwrite the site’s layered history, but to weave it into a new, forward-looking identity.

The former barracks grounds are transformed into a Park of Encounters. Spaces such as the Gatehouse Square, Parade Ground, Riding Arena, and the historic Commissary Park – along with the interstitial streets and leftover zones – become reinterpreted and renamed places of social life: Forum, Culture Market, Common Ground, and Showcase. The memory of the place is preserved, yet the meanings of its objects and spaces are shifted, disrupted, and reassembled.

Historical artifacts – ranging from surveillance cameras and seating to lighting and paving – are collected, distorted, and scenographically re-staged. A red band of recycled concrete pavers from the 1970s, shredded and reused on site, traces a connective thread across the landscape. It links people, places, histories, and moments – lending the park cohesion and rhythm.

A former checkpoint becomes a playground. The Gatehouse Square, once filled with posts, cameras, and signage, is now deliberately overloaded – playfully exaggerated with sound installations, bird nests, and performative elements. The former perimeter wall of the barracks is opened up, transformed into a permeable, vibrant zone of exchange along Römerstraße.

The result is a space that does not deny its difficult past but instead makes it accessible, tangible, and – through a quietly ironic lens – invites reinterpretation. It becomes a public realm where remembrance and the future are no longer in conflict, but coexist in dialogue.