Like many other residential schemes of the 1960s the Nordweststadt in Frankfurt requires an update of its building stock, a redesign that meets current and future demands of urban living. A set of transferable, integrative, and low-cost design measures is developed, focusing on three main tasks: Tidying up, the regeneration of neighbourhoods, and the strengthening of identity.

Shrubs and trees are cut back, the parking is reorganized, pedestrian and cycle lanes are being introduced, new public spaces are designed and the courtyards are upgraded by private gardens, new public green amenity spaces and 'light pergolas' - a minimal architecture that connects basement parking with the courtyards and passes over into a podium with seating steps on ground level. The light pergolas enclose a small lounge, an external barbecue, water and electricity connections and a bicycle workshop. During evening hours and at night the pergolas illuminate the courtyard, by day these enable diverse and easy use of the courtyard and strengthen a lively community.

The airport Berlin Tegel is going to be closed down. TXL will be developed as a high-quality research, industry and business park with the profile of 'urban technologies'. A strategic master plan builds the foundation for a flexible - and therefore, robust - planning process. Developmental guidelines and a profound system of rules create a structural, programmatic and creative quality of strategic important subareas.

Simultaneously, more flexible developmental options are being allocated for other areas. ‚Quarters' profiles' emphasize existing potentials of subareas and strengthen the specific identity. An integrated concept for energy and water supports sustainable development: biomass, geothermal energy, wind energy and photovoltaics provide regionally generated energy. Gray and rainwater is being collected, refined and reused regionally. An urban aerial railway connects the site with the station and the tram. Here, the aerial railway is not only an efficient, sustainable means of transport but also represents sustainable mobility in terms of the site's profile.

Freiburg is a growing city where more and more people want to live. How can the city continue to be developed in a sustainable way? The Perspectivplan elaborates spatial development options for the City of Freiburg in the next 10 to 15 years. In the course of designing, built-up areas and open spaces are conceived and developed together. Based on a differentiated (GIS)-structure analysis, so far undetected potentials are made visible, development strategies are pointed out and by means of scenarios a future spatial image with a complementary structure plan is generated. The project has been developed in a cooperative process with stakeholders, the municipality, politics and the public.

www.perspektivplan-freiburg.de

Yueyang is a growing city in the Chinese province of Hunan. In cooperation with hydrology, water management, and water ecology experts as well as landscape architects, we developed a masterplan with the aim of a new adjustment of urban and open space development in the course of water quality improvement.

The masterplan analyses the spatial and programmatic potentials of the Nanhu (lake) and the surrounding build-up and open space structures and develops them as a blue-green infrastructure. That improves the city's interconnectedness and the accessibility of green spaces. A catalogue of sponge city strategies proposes transferable concepts for a structure related integration of sponge city principles. The blue-green-black masterplan merges the strategies and delivers design approaches for different types of waterfronts and city profiles.

Alternating the inner-city freeway B3 offers chances of enormous quality. In place of a disruptive gap with high infrastructural means, a continuously livable city can emerge along the freeway. A city that is balanced multimodally with all its functions, spaces and atmospheres. The integration of transit spaces as well as thinking built environment and free space together enables a programmatic diversity and synergies which can react to change. Besides the task of keeping up the traffic flow, barriers, noise and emissions are being reduced and inner-city plots are being reclaimed for urban developments.

The chosen street section in the "Leinemasch" minimizes the intervention in the landscape. The Willmerstrasse is being transformed into a lively city street with high living and sojourning qualities by implementing a tunnel for the freeway, starting from Schützenstraße. East of the Hildesheimer Straße a Tunnelpark emerges with high qualities of open space for the adjacent urban areas. In addition to optimizing the freeway itself, sustainable mobility and transport are being valorized massively: Ricklingen in the west and Döhren in the east are connected with a bicycle highway and a tangential busline.

The building's structure is based on the static elements pillar, plate and gate as well as the every few minutes incoming trains. A natural passage from Luckernwalder street to the signal box and the park connection south is build up by the viaduct facades of lines U2 and S21. They could easily be activated by contemporary commercial usage for the traffic centre "Heart of Stations".

In sum, a unique specimen is generated, creating a special atmosphere and spatial quality between the tracks and towards the park. In the north-south direction, the slender, 17-storey superstructure is extended over the property. It is adapted as a rostrum and stage to the park and fits into the heterogeneous property structure between ICE lines and stations. In the base area, four gates allow the train transits and significant visual references in north-south as well as in east-west direction. On the various levels, " heavenly" spaces for non-commercial transit and temporary users are integrated into the structure of established users and anchor tenants.

This urban design aims to create an attractive living environment for young families and couples and to give a new impulse to a large social housing estate from the 1960s. The existing open block structure will be maintained but is transformed into a structure with semi-private courtyards.

Different typologies - i.e. houses with ground-level access, apartments with open floor plans - add variation to the housing supply. Within the building blocks, elevated courtyards create a safe environment for social interaction between inhabitants, especially young families. Notwithstanding their open character, these courtyards offer a clear visual and functional border between public and private spaces.

Between the blocks, a sequence of car-free squares that draw on the surrounding structure contributes to a lively public space. To keep spaces as car-free as possible, most of the parking is organized in underground garages which are accessible from the edges of the block. By drawing on the existing structure, and by continuing the green belts and the existing rows of trees, the design creates a strong link with its surroundings.

The river Guitanghe in its current state holds complex problems for the urban development of Changsha. In the future, it is to be identified as a central and living lifeline in the city and its ecological, urban, social and cultural significance will be considerably increased.

Based on a flood problem and different water levels of the Guitanghe, dynamic urban development is created that considers water as a variable in dimensioning and programming of spaces. In this urban experimental field, innovative economic and urban development concepts intermesh. Changsha, a growing city, gets an ambitious, positive and future-oriented perspective.

The river is going to play a major role as the central and linear centre of the city and, in addition to water management measures, offers the opportunity to make urban improvements and to connect Changsha via green and blue veins emanating from the river, both within the city and outwards. The Guitanghe will work as a green lung and strengthen the urban ecosystem as well as it will provide the city of Changsha with a new identity through local recreation areas and social and cultural infrastructure.