Urban planning reimagined I
Case Study No. 1. Primary School in Bad Mergentheim
Bad Mergentheim is a spa town in Germany with a population of nearly 24,000. In 1977, the local development plan “Mittlere Au-Nord I” was drawn up, reserving space for an educational campus. Building lines were established, along with floor area ratio and site coverage parameters. The plan also provided for a dedicated transport layout, a bus loop, and car parking spaces. The area designated for educational use was gradually built up. A secondary school was established, followed by the Kopernikus Realschule primary school, and later the Kinderhaus “Spielwiese Kunterbunt” nursery.”
In 2019, the city commissioned a report on projected primary school enrolment trends. It concluded that, due to a visible increase in pupil numbers, a new school would need to be opened no later than the 2024/25 academic year. In 2020, the City Council decided to organise a closed urban-architectural competition to select a design for the new school. Preparation of the competition was entrusted to the urban planning practice Schreiberplan from Stuttgart. The Schreiberplan team developed the building’s functional programme and compared the client’s requirements against the provisions of the existing local development plan. Following their analysis, they concluded that it was both possible and necessary to increase the floor area ratio from 2.0 to approximately 3.8 — nearly double. This opened the way for launching the competition procedure and, in its wake, meeting the city-as-client’s needs.
The Bad Mergentheim school is an example of a case where specialist analysis in the field of urbanism and spatial planning made it possible to deliver an investment that significantly exceeded the parameters set out in the existing local development plan. The one element that was not changed was the transport infrastructure serving the planned new building — here the baseline was the infrastructure already provided for and built under the 1977 local plan. The competition brief explicitly indicated that there was no requirement to provide new car parking spaces.
