Project title

Urban development concept city of Neuchatel (Projet de territoire ville de Neuchâtel, 2022-2023)

Main themes

Urban development, densification, coordination of urban development and traffic, municipality fusion, urban morphology, sustainable mobility, building on slopes, green space, lakeshore development, urban axes, forest edge neighborhoods, nature in the city, green gardens, ecology, monument preservation, economic development, workplace neighborhoods, mixed use neighborhoods, city center development, neighborhood centers, historic village centers, inner city development, tourism and leisure, pedestrian traffic, city of short distances

Team

Van de Wetering Atelier für Städtebau (Lead urban development concept, urbanism, architecture), Team+ (Lead zoning plan revision, mobility), Enoki, Ecoscan, Wagner&Bois, Koelliker

Client

City of Neuchatel

Links

City of Neuchatel

10 km lakeshore, 10 km forest edge and in between the steep Jura mountain slope with a less than 1 km wide, 10 km long city. Neuchâtel is unique in urbanistic terms, for which we have developed a very site-specific urban development concept together with Team+.

The special feature: the focus of the urban development is on 6 city-wide, precisely located spatial elements that make up the spatial identity of the city. They are special and important, but also difficult and complex, for example the lakeshore, the diagonals or the centralities. With a focused densification and revalorisation, these qualitative spatial elements - as identity carriers of the city - are upgraded and strengthened in a specific way. The 7th spatial element is the rest of the city: this element is the largest in terms of area and is not affected by structural changes. This allows for much more greening of the many open spaces and gardens. It also simplifies - because of the limitation of the urban development changes to 6 spatial elements - the local planning revision and supports the acceptance of densification, because most people are not affected by it.