Greening "Neue Mitte" Salem Diversity in a clear structure

Color in the 'Neue Mitte' Salem - diversity in a clear structure



From 2018, the municipality of Salem implemented a "New Center" south of the castle lake. It consists of the new town hall building, a shopping and medical center, a park overlooking the castle lake and a residential area.




Structuring of the residential quarter



The planning task included the planning and implementation of the greening of the residential quarter, which is accessible on foot via boulevards and smaller cross streets. Stationary traffic is largely accommodated in underground garages. This means that hardly any vehicles are visible in the public space, which gives the greening a correspondingly high priority. In order to meet this requirement, but also to accommodate the possibilities of the relatively small municipality, the paved areas were designed to be simple and functional. The planting, on the other hand, stands out visually and shapes the image of the residential area.

The 6 m wide boulevards in a north-south orientation were divided into 2 m wide barrier-free walking strips with concrete paving. The other 4 m wide strips were laid out as multifunctional areas with grass paving. These are structured by the planting of a total of 80 avenue trees, planting areas, seating and bicycle parking. The furniture and planted areas are arranged in such a way that parking on the boulevard areas is not possible. Bollards were deliberately avoided.



Sidewalks with longitudinal parking spaces and planting zones for trees with underplanting were created in the cross streets. Planting areas as lane narrowing have a traffic-calming effect.

In terms of climate adaptation, the paving (with a high proportion of recycled concrete) was chosen in light colors. The color tone is also based on the clinker facades of the buildings.





Plants



The trees were given large root spaces in the subsoil with special substrate and turf joint paving on the surface so that as much rainwater as possible reaches the root space. Due to the exposure of the residential area, the shade from the trees largely falls on the sidewalks. Various seating options are arranged in the shade. The lawn joints were not only sown with grass seed, but also "enriched" with a biodiversity mixture from the green roof area, sedum species and flowering wild perennials. In addition, geophytes such as wild crocus and vineyard hyacinths were added to the paving joints as a spring aspect.

The perennial planting was put together with many different aspects in mind. The aim was to create a planting that was as insect-friendly as possible, attractive all year round, drought-resistant, durable, low-maintenance and adapted to the respective light conditions, and which also used a high proportion of native perennials.