For over 150 years, the banks of the Rhine in the Hochfeld district have been used for industrial purposes. With the IGA 2027 and the future urban district RheinOrt, Duisburg is moving back to the Rhine and the river close to the city can be experienced again. The site in Duisburg Hochfeld represents one of three future gardens in the Metropole Ruhr as part of the IGA. The future sites pursue the goal of making a positive contribution to climate resilience, as well as creating lasting, ecologically meaningful added value for nature, landscape and urban spaces.The RheinOrt development area covers approximately 27 hectares and is intended to represent a lively, mixed-use urban neighborhood in the future. RheinOrt will create a new space for working and living, thus pursuing the goal of bringing Duisburg back to the Rhine.
IGA 2027
The Metropole Ruhr has successfully applied for the International Garden Exhibition (IGA) under the guiding question: "How do we want to live tomorrow?" for the year 2027. Unique for a garden show in a metropolitan region is the decentralized concept, which will involve the entire region in 2027 in the tradition of the IBA Emscher Park or Ruhr.2010. Duisburg will play a central role in the IGA 2027 with its location in Hochfeld.
At the technical level and at the level of regional cooperation, the IGA 2027 will be a laboratory for innovations whose success must be measured by concrete improvements in living conditions, especially in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods and their spatial surroundings. It is thus an important component of the sustainability strategy for the entire Metropole Ruhr.
In the long-term perspective, IGA 2027 aims to gear the planning and development of its projects as a whole towards addressing climate change and making a positive contribution to climate resilience, as well as creating lasting, ecologically meaningful added value for nature, landscape and urban spaces.
The IGA will be implemented via a three-level model designed to present the Metropole Ruhr in its entirety, from civic initiatives with a neighborhood focus ("My Garden"), to municipal projects and regional cooperations ("Our Gardens"), to representative large-scale projects with showcases of achievements in the green sector, tourism and urban development ("Future Garden RheinPark and Connection"). The IGA 2027 offers the opportunity to bundle targeted funding and to transform the city of Duisburg with a focus on the future garden "RheinPark und Anbindung" in a livable way and to develop it as a unique urban space on the Rhine.
The RheinPark will be permanently supplemented and extended to the south to the Kultushafen. The Green Ring, as a connection of the RheinPark to the city center, will be redesigned into a multifunctional open space that creates identity, involves the residents of Duisburg and integrates climate and environmental issues in a modern way. The Parklandschaft Ruhr and the Emscher estuary will serve as special experience and natural spaces that link open spaces beyond the city limits.
The individual project components consist of a multitude of single projects, which will be concretized in terms of content and space within the framework of an open space planning realization competition and the subsequent gardening competitions.
RheinOrt
With the gradual relocation of heavy industry away from the banks of the Rhine, the city of Duisburg and the business community have seized the opportunity to develop an industrial site that has been in use for more than 150 years into a high-quality location for future-oriented uses.
In 2019, ArcelorMittal's search for a cooperation partner and investor for the further development of the RheinOrt site took place. After an extensive selection process, ArcelorMittal chose the FERRA-RO Group.
Covering 60 hectares, the new site is located in the southwest of Duisburg City - directly on the right high bank of the Rhine in Hochfeld. The adopted urban development goal "Duisburg on the Rhine" enables a new experience of the city with the RheinPark project and, in perspective, a new relationship of the city center to the Rhine with high quality with the RheinOrt urban district. Approximately 27 hectares of the total area, on which old industrial plants still stand today, is earmarked as an area for the mixed-use urban quarter RheinOrt. This creates space for working and living and also offers considerable potential for the settlement of companies. The necessary infrastructure, an elementary school, separate daycare centers for children and additional neighborhood squares will be integrated. In addition, the RheinPark will be one of the three future gardens planned for the International Garden Show IGA 2027 in the Metropole Ruhr and thus a central component of the horticultural exhibition.
Planning rights are targeted for the year 2023. The aim of all cooperation partners is to revitalize the Hochfeld district and to make an important contribution to Duisburg's urban development by developing the banks of the Rhine. In addition to FERRARO GROUP and Drees & Sommer, the project participants of RheinOrt include Atelier Loidl Landschaftsarchitekten, NIEMANN+STEEGE Gesellschaft für Stadtentwicklung, Stadtplanung, Städtebau, Städtebaurecht mbH.
Image rights: wbp Landschaftsarchitekten GmbH, Bochum with Hille Tesch Architekten + Stadtplaner PartGmbB, Ingelheim Authors: Rebecca Junge Christine Wolf Markus Hille Fabrice Tesch Collaboration: Luisa Walterbusch Teelke Limbeck Daniela Germaná Hannah Tesch