Densification as the Key to Suburb Regeneration The Case of Driescher Hof in Aachen

• Published in: Mapping Urban Spaces pp. 215 - 224
• Main Author: Verterame, Giuseppe
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2022
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Friuli Venezia Giulia; District Subject; Infrastructural Apparatus; Superimposed; Northern Facade; Free Elements; Recent Urban Developments; Piloni; Traffic Ring; Brand District; Vice Versa; Centrality Fields; Postwar; Sociological Characteristics; Town Halls; Dense; Follow; Porticoed Building; Territorial Signs; ENSA; Figure Ground Diagrams; Linear Spaces
• ISBN: 9781032041247; 1032041242; 1032041269; 9781032041261
• DOI: 10.4324/9781003190660-25

The urban part of Driescher Hof in Aachen has a suburban condition characterized by a sprawl that is typical of more recent urban developments and the result of decades of speculation. In these contexts, the meaning of the city is strongly compromised, since the theme of urban living is reduced to the functionalist concept of the residence, experienced only within the domestic space. The urban regeneration project is developed according to the Urban regeneration technique through the structured densification of the system of centralities (TDSC) and addressing in-depth levels at different scales, from the territory to the architecture. Centrality is identified as an architectural type that regenerates substantial voids in the suburbs with the aim of restoring its identity and assuming a strategic role in the relations between cities and territorial settlements. Densification assumes greater importance within the regeneration process, an action that reorganizes the available space, restoring its meaning and a quality, as well as a new function that satisfies the compositional and formal structure of the space.