This year’s World Architecture Festival brought a double up on awards to the Hamburger masterplan Oberbillwerder by ADEPT and KARRES EN BRANDS. Not only did the sustainable masterplan take home the award in its own category, it was also honored as the winner of ’Future Project of the Year’ as the first masterplan ever. 

The masterplan for Oberbillwerder, the Connected City, in Hamburg, was highly praised, as the World Architecture Festival last week awarded both completed and future projects. ADEPT and KARRES EN BRANDS took home a total two awards for their sustainable urbanism: as the best project in the category ’Future Projects Masterplan’, and as the first masterplan ever, Oberbillwerder was named ’Future Project of the Year’ as the overall winner of the 13 future categories.

The Jury explains its selection: ”Grave problems need brave and bold responses! Here is a response of breathtaking competence and imagination. A ’roller coaster’ ride to that viable urbanism that has been so elusive. A great scheme that will surely inform those better tomorrows that intelligent design will bring.”

Oberbillwerder, just 15 min from the centre of Hamburg, was earlier this year pre-certified with DGNB Platinum - the highest ranking within the system - and is thus well under way to become one of the mist sustainable urban developments in Europe. Oberbillwerder is the largest one-off urban development in Germany since Hafencity and covers a build area of 124 ha within an impressive 360 ha planning area. Fully developed, the district will accommodate around one mill. m2 - more than 7.000 residential units, 4.000 workplaces, new schools, sports facilities etc.

The detailed plans for the resilient 105th district of Hamburg has been analyzed thoroughly by the German DGNB Council through an extensive process focusing on the more than 30 criteria within ecology, economy, sociocultural and functional sustainability, process and technical quality. The preliminary result shows that Oberbillwerder meet more than 80 percent of the criteria, making it one of Europe’s most sustainable urban developments. Oberbillwerder is the first urban district of its size to achieve a platinum pre-certification.

WAF