Duisburg Nord Landscape Park

Description

This ambitious landscape project successfully converted an industrial environment into a large open park on a regional scale. The Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park is part of the Emscher Landschaftspark project: from Duisburg to Dortmund, this regional project has succeeded in transforming a large area degraded by heavy industrial use into a network of sustainable public and cultural spaces, while preserving the industrial heritage in the landscape. More than 120 different projects are part of this network. The Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park was the first of these and set the spirit for the regeneration process to be developed, which is still alive today. The architects conceived a park in which the industrial elements from the former 200-hectare Thyssen steel plant would be the primary elements of the composition.  The project took advantage of part of the existing – and obsolete – road infrastructure to connect previously isolated areas and, at the same time, create additional routes for pedestrians and cyclists. All the elements of the old plant were preserved as a way of celebrating its beauty and understanding how early industry worked. The old infrastructures continue to age, accompanied in the process but not slowed down, with the vegetation slipping through the industrial ruins, turning the old facilities into a garden full of evocative moments.  In short, a project that successfully integrates plant and human activity into a process of ecological restoration on a territorial scale.