Zollverein Park by Planergruppe

Planergruppe: “There are landscapes in the countryside or in the midst of cities which have been left behind and forgotten – a no-man’s-land where the life of animals and plants remains hidden and people are rare. The landscape of the former Zollverein colliery is situated away from the city, difficult to reach, and secured with walls and fences. Zollverein Park emerged over just a few years amidst collieries and coking plants. Admittedly, there were structural changes, but landscape designers with their teams of gardeners did initially not take part in it. Despite or even because of this, everything is ever so magnificent and at the same time strange. A multifaceted open space arose in the immediate surroundings of a unique industrial monument – a park with light forests, dark scrub, lakes, and open, wide spaces for sighting the tree-shaded paths.”

以上设计公司Planergruppe在1994年对煤矿焦化厂公园的看法。94年之后，煤矿焦化厂附近区域开始迅速发展，人们可以进入到公园还未被开发的区域之中。2005年，设计团队在煤矿焦化厂公园的设计竞赛中将两种不同的观点联系在一起：强调被遗忘景观的特征和品质，并为矿业联盟的活动提供必要的新的、多层面的和强大的基础设施。

This has been our view on Zollverein Park in 1994. Subsequently, the area of the Zollverein colliery and coking plant took a rapid development. The Zollverein Park was made accessible and visitors were allowed to enter the unexplored site. The concept with which we took Zollverein Park into architectural competition in 2005 linked two different views together: carefully emphasizing the existing characteristics and qualities of a forgotten landscape, and making available necessary new, multifaceted and robust infrastructure for new activities at Zollverein.

公园设计的手法基于几个原则：强调建筑整体性，采用克制的景观设计方法，减少元素和材料的类别，尊重现有资源，保护工业遗产，提升游客活动空间，使封闭的工业场所向开放的公共空间转变，增强园区体验感。煤矿焦化厂公园是在工业场地上发展起来的，它并不否定场地自身的起源，只是稍微增加了一些元素。工业建筑清晰、简洁的形式结构与各种自然植被之间的鲜明对比是场地的特色。通过对场地系统和持续的维护，煤矿焦化厂公园逐渐形成了自己的面貌。

Our approach and handling of Zollverein is based on several principles: emphasis on the architectural ensemble, restraint in landscape design, reduction of elements and materials, respect for the existing, preservation of industrial origin, acquisition of space by the visitors, making the transformation from a hermetically sealed-off industrial site to a public tourist highlight visible and experience-able. Zollverein Park – which has developed on industrially embossed terrain and does not deny its origins by gently adding and classifying – keeps its unique selling point by the high-contrast interacting between the clear, simple forms and structures of industrial architecture and the variety of spontaneous vegetation. The shape and outer appearance of Zollverein Park are being developed by a systematic and continuous maintenance.

The long-term concept of development by maintenance goes hand in hand with the gradual realization of the elements of Zollverein Park. Over a relatively long period, a forbidden zone develops to a park which is ready to get explored. It is not about establishing a museum-like industrial landscape, yet about composing a landscape with already existing elements; this concept consciously includes historical and current developments and signs in a credible manner and offers surface and room for future developments and purposes – open to interpretation and offering a pragmatic dysfunction.

从维护上来看设计概念，保护现有植被和避免大规模干预这样的柔性手段是相互联系的。鼓励植被自然生长，设计师对现有和将有植被的设计干预是非常谨慎的。因此，煤矿焦化厂公园成为了一个有特殊氛围和能量的地方，易于进行园区的保养和维护，且性价比较高。

With the concept of design by maintenance, the gentle approach to emphasizing the existing vegetation and to dispensing with any large intervention is linked. The vegetation is given time and calmness to develop naturally, and any potential intervention in the existing and future vegetation is being executed very carefully. Therefore, Zollverein became a place that develops a special atmosphere and energy out of itself. The cautious care and maintenance is at the same time easy to be arrangeable and practicable, and relatively cost-effective.