The City as Garden: A Study of the Sustainable Urban District of

Kronsberg (Hannover), Germany

Gary J. Coates, Professor

Victor L. Regnier Distinguished Faculty Chair
Department of Architecture
College of Architecture, Planning and Design
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506
gcoates@ksu.edu

47th International Making Cities Livable Conference, Portland, Oregon May 10-14, 2009

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Abstract
Designed by means of a unique participatory process within the frameworks of William
McDonough’s “Hannover Principles” and the United Nations Agenda 21, Kronsberg was
planned as a model sustainable urban district for 15,000 people as a demonstration project for
EXPO 2000, a World’s Fair hosted by the city of Hannover, Germany.1 The central concept for
this ecologically designed and energy self-sufficient moderate to high density community is the
notion of “The City as Garden.” In 2009, eleven years after the first residents first moved in, two
of five planned neighborhoods have been built, providing housing, schools, shops, places of
worship and recreational facilities as well as a variety of green open spaces for some 6600
residents.
Based on a comprehensive review of the literature as well as field research conducted
over the past three years, this paper focuses on the ways in which the district’s ecological
landscape design for on-site water retention and aquifer recharge has been used to create a
complex and therapeutically restorative network of pedestrian-oriented outdoor spaces,
including: a variety of neighborhood parks; a network of green streets and bicycle paths shaded
by trees and lined with bio-swales; an interconnected fabric of green residential courtyards with
shared facilities for community gatherings as well as play spaces for children, and; a large,
nature-preserve consisting of pastures, fields and woodlands, which is connected to each block
by means of bio-swale-lined boulevards and narrow roads limited to local use. It is concluded
that Kronsberg truly is a “garden city” that demonstrates that ecologically-based urban design
not only preserves the health of surrounding ecosystems but, in so doing, also contributes to the
physical, psychological and social health of its residents—especially its children.

Kronsberg Sustainable Urban District, Hannover, Germany

It is increasingly recognized that Germany is the leading nation in the world with regard
to the movement to create a society that is socially, ecologically and technologically sustainable.2
While there are a number of German eco-communities of significant size and sophistication that
are worthy of study, including the Vauban and Riesefeld districts in “solar city Freiberg”, the
largest and most significant project to date is the garden city of Kronsberg, located on former
agricultural land near the Hannover trade fair grounds. As a model sustainable community
Kronsberg is a high density urban district that successfully demonstrates the integration of the
technological, social and ecological aspects of sustainable community design. It is characterized
by:

1) A Compact Urban Fabric, comprised of a master plan for five mixed-use neighborhoods
designed to house a socially diverse population of 15,000 people in 6,000 energy efficient
housing units (at 47 units per net acre) when it is fully built out sometime between 2010-2015.
To date two neighborhoods have been built with more than 3,300 dwelling units housing some
6,600 residents;

1
William McDonough & Micahel Braungart, Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability, New York:
William Mcdonough Architects, 1992.
2
See Donald W. Aitken, “Germany Launches Its Transition: How One of the most Advanced Industrial
Nations is Moving to 100 Percent Energy From Renewable Sources”, Solar Today, March/April 2005, pp
26-29.

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2) Multi-Modal Transportation Linkages, providing connections to the nearby EXPO trade fair
grounds as well as Hannover city center by means of a light rail line (less than a twenty minute
ride), as well as walking and bike paths and a network of well connected roads;
3) Diverse Public Amenities including a primary school, sports hall and sports fields, a
comprehensive high school, three day care centers, a youth center, community meeting rooms in
every housing block, an arts and multi-service community center, a health center, and a shopping
center at the meeting of the two neighborhoods;
3) An Ecological Landscape Design (the “city as garden” theme) that maximizes on-site
rainwater retention and natural aquifer recharge while providing tree-shaded streets lined by
sidewalks and bio-swales, as well as a varied network of pedestrian paths connecting all the
therapeutically restorative and recreational green spaces within each residential block;
4) Integrated Living and Working realms through the provision of employment opportunities at
the nearby fairgrounds and an adjoining office park that itself provides more than 3,000
information industry jobs, all within easy walking distance of all the neighborhoods;
5) An Efficient, Decentralized, Integrated Energy System that uses natural gas powered CHP
(Combined Heat and Power) units to provide district heating as well as electricity to the entire
community;
6) Renewable Energy Systems for electrical power in the form of three large wind generators
located on nearby Kronsberg hill, as well as Building Integrated Photovoltaics placed on the
primary school and community center, that, combined with the CHP units, provide more
electricity than the district needs (with a 74% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in 2001
compared to ordinary developments);
7) Urban Agriculture in the form of the nearby Kronsberg Organic Farm and Rural Workshops,
containing an organic farm, dairy and cheese-making operation, butchery, brewery, bakery and
farmers’ market, houses for business proprietors and farm workers and an inn for participants in
workshops on sustainable agriculture;
8) An Ecologically Varied Adjoining Landscape, comprised of restored native woodlands,
wetlands and pastures, that is available for recreation and nature study and that is linked up by
means of walking and cycling trails to Hannover’s many forests, parks and gardens.

The Negative Effects of Conventional Development: The Question of Rainwater

Ecological design, especially with regard to water, has been central to the planning and
development of the Kronsberg urban district from the very beginning. In 1983 hydro-geological
studies were carried out by Professor Sieker of the University of Hannover which concluded that
conventional development of the area would have a disastrous impact on the local ground water
system. Consequently, plans for development were put on hold until planning began in earnest
for EXPO 2000 in the early 1990s.3
In 1992, with EXPO 2000 fast approaching, the city felt the need to solve the rainwater
problem so that a model sustainable community could be built at Kronsberg as an EXPO
demonstration project. Consequently, more detailed studies of groundwater flow patterns in and
around the Kronsberg development area were conducted as part of a comprehensive
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) by Professor Hull of the Institute of Hydrology. Once

3
Water Concept Kronsberg: Part of the EXPO project Ecological Optimization Kronsberg, City of
Hannover Water Department, 2000, pg 12.

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again, however, it was determined that typical development patterns would negatively affect the
hydrological system of the entire area.4
Thus, in order to proceed with any development at all in the Kronsberg area, city officials
decided that it first would be necessary to create a rainwater absorption and drainage concept that
would ensure that the compact, high density development that was desired would not negatively
affect the hydrology of the area. Given the fact that the geology of Kronsberg is characterized by
nearly impermeable calcerous clay soils, it was soon realized that this lofty design goal would be
particularly difficult to achieve, especially for the kind of high to moderate density development
that was being proposed.

The Kronsberg Rainwater Design and Management Concept

The conventional approach to rainwater management is to gather water runoff from roofs,
parking lots and other impermeable surfaces and to channel it as quickly as possible through a
hierarchy of underground pipes to far away retention ponds. Not only is this system quite costly,
but we now realize that it is also a major contributor to downstream flooding, especially when
there are sudden large storm events. In addition this approach leads to a systemic failure to
adequately recharge underground aquifers in and around human settlements. The standard
approach to storm water design and management is basically an engineering approach that treats
rainwater as a problem to be solved rather than as an opportunity to be seized.
The Kronsberg vision was to develop a comprehensive design approach that would allow
the new urban district to mimic the hydrological system of the pre-existing natural landscape so
that, in terms of ground water flow and aquifer recharge, the entire area would function the same
after development as it did before. Moreover, city officials saw such ecologically-based design
as an opportunity to make rainwater visible in a way that would enhance the beauty and livability
of the built environment by allowing it to be slowly absorbed slowly into the fabric of the entire
urban landscape. This, in turn, implied the necessity to develop a new form of green urbanism
for Kronsberg. If this district was going to be built at all it would have to become a true garden
city, if for no other reason than to ensure that the hydrological system of the entire Kronsberg
area would be preserved intact.
To accomplish these ambitious and visionary design goals it was also clear that there
would have to be a true partnership between city officials, who were responsible for sustaining
the overall vision and developing the public infrastructure, and the private sector developers who
would be responsible for designing and building the residential blocks and their related open
spaces. Thus, from the beginning, city officials orchestrated a comprehensive, participatory
planning and design process that would ensure that this outcome would be achieved.

Ecologically-Based Community Design and Landscape Planning

In 1992 an international design competition was held in order to generate concepts for
land use planning and development of the existing Hannover trade fair area as well as the
proposed Kronsberg urban district. Competition entrants were specifically asked to propose ways
by which the development of Kronsberg could meet the stringent ecological and rainwater
management goals, while also devising ways to improve transportation linkages to the entire area
and modernizing the trade fair grounds for EXPO 2000 and beyond.5 This competition was won

4
Ibid, pg 12.
5
Karin Rumming (ed.), Hannover Kronsberg Handbook: Planning and Realization (Leipzig: Jutte-
Messedruck Liepzig GmbH, 2004, pp 22, 23.

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by Arnaboldi, Cavadini and Hager (Locarno & Zurich) in a scheme which clearly separated the
proposed Kronsberg urban district from a carefully restored and preserved natural area on
Kronsberg hill to the east.6
In 1993 the Hannover city council announced a second competition, building on the
winning scheme from the 1992 competition, which focused on the design of a compact urban
district capable of accommodating 6,000 new housing units as well as all related commercial,
recreational, retail, religious and public spaces. All participants were supplied with the detailed
results of the earlier Environmental Impact Assessments, as well as the City Water Department’s
studies and recommendations for rainwater management and design. Emphasis was placed in the
competition guidelines on planning for residential blocks with green interior courts, water-
absorbing landscape design and the creation of parks and other linked green open spaces
throughout the community in order to create what was referred to as “biotope chains”.7
First prize went to the Braunschweig firm of Welp/Welp and Sawada, whose proposal
was based on the creation of a compact district with gridded streets and a clear boundary
separating it from the nature preserve on the upper slope of Kronsberg hill. The preserve itself
was to be developed according to the earlier EIA studies as well as the results of landscape
planning and design workshops held with five landscape architecture firms during 1994. The
landscape plan proposed by the Kienast office was chosen as the framework for the spatial
organization of the entire urban/rural landscape.8 This scheme, which proposed the use of five
transverse green corridors to link the urban edge of the proposed neighborhoods with the nature
preserve along Kronsberg hill, also proposed the development of regional walking and cycling
paths and the use of excavated soils in the nature preserve area. A major purpose of the Kienast
plan was to increase the total number and variety of local biotopes as well as the overall
biodiversity of the entire area through the creation of wetlands, grasslands and wild plant
communities along with the expansion of forests and the creation of streetscapes comprised of
diverse local tree species. This landscape plan was then legally enshrined in the area zoning plan
ensuring that a domesticated preserve of “wild “ nature always will be an integral part of the
Kronsberg Urban district.

Project Implementation: “The Kronsberg Standard” Development Plan

In order to create as much architectural and landscape diversity as possible and to raise
money for the installation of public infrastructure, it was decided that land for individual blocks
would be sold, each to different developer/architect teams. Eventually, more than forty
architectural and landscape architecture firms were hired to design the residential blocks in the
first two neighborhoods. To guarantee that overall urban design goals would be met, and to
ensure the implementation and coordination of the city’s ambitious ecological and rainwater
management objectives, each developer/design team was required, as the condition for the
purchase of property, to show how their proposed design would adhere to detailed specifications
for green building and landscape design as laid out in a legally binding Kronsberg Development
Plan document that came to be called the “Kronsberg Standard”.9 With the completion of these
master planning, landscape planning, site zoning and development plan documents the stage was

6
Ibid., pg 24.
7
Ibid., pg 25.
8
Ibid., pp 27-29.
9
Ibid., pp 32-35. Also see Douglas Farr, Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature, op. cit. pp
242-245.

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set for the design and development of the first phase of construction, which started in 1997. By
1998 workers at the EXPO trade show started moving in to Kronsberg apartments and by the
start of EXPO 2000 almost 3000 dwelling units had been completed and occupied.
As part of the world exposition, whose theme was sustainability through the integration
of nature, technology and society, Kronsberg was presented to visitors through guided tours and
exhibitions, workshops and conferences as well as publications by KUKA GmbH (Kronsberg
Environmental Liaison Agency), the environmental liaison agency founded in 1997, which was
responsible for communicating to Kronsberg residents, developers, builders, architects, media
representatives and the general public about how Kronsberg was designed, and how, in general,
it is possible to build and behave in a more sustainable, environmentally responsible manner.10

Phase One: Kronsberg-Nord & Kronsberg-Mitte 1998-2009

Source: Hannover Kronsberg Handbook, pg 49.

Overview of Kronsberg Planning and Design Characteristics

To date two out of the planned five neighborhoods have been built, providing more than
3,300 dwelling units for some 6,600 residents. Each neighborhood is made up of eight residential
blocks that are grouped around a central park. The blocks are uncommonly large in order to

10
Karin Rumming (ed.), Hannover Kronsberg Handbook: Planning and Realization, op. cit., pp 36-39.

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allow adequate green space for both private and shared gardens as well as large open spaces for
unstructured play as well as for on-site water retention and absorption.11
Kronsberg-Nord contains a kindergarden and youth center as well as a block of Passiv
Haus-style row houses. The central district square, which was designed in consultation with
Kronsberg residents, is located at the southwestern edge of this neighborhood, directly adjacent
to Kronsberg-Mitte. The public square is bounded by the KROKUS Arts and Community Center,
a center for social services, a health center, an ecumenical church with shared meeting spaces
and apartments, a youth center and a variety of shops with housing above. The smaller of two
Combined Heat and Power (CHP) district heating plants is located in the cellar of one of the
apartment blocks at the northwestern edge of the neighborhood.
The Kronsberg-Mitte neighborhood includes two children’s day care centers, one of
which is placed in its large central park and the other of which is located adjacent to the
Kronsberg nature preserve at the southeastern edge of the neighborhood. A comprehensive high
school for all children anchors the southwestern edge of the neighborhood, directly adjacent to
the district’s largest Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant.
The most notable architectural innovation in Kronsber-Mitte is “Solar City”, a residential
community which uses solar thermal collectors and a large partially buried water tank to gather
and store excess hot water collected during the long hot summer days for use in the winter. The
tank itself forms a “mountain” for the playground that further distinguishes this block. In
addition, Habitat, a residential block for families from many nations and ethnic and religious
traditions, including Muslims, is also located in this neighborhood. It’s public plaza opens
directly off a local street, inviting residents and visitors to stop at the resident-operated café.

Habitat-The International Housing Block

Source: Gary J. Coates

11
For a detailed description of Kronsberg, including the design of individual apartment buildings and
landscaped courtyards see, Inge Schottkowski-Bähre (ed.), Modell Kronsberg: Sustainable Building for
the Future, City of Hannover, 2000.

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 To create a unified yet varied townscape, buildings in both neighborhoods are four
storeys high along the tramline at the western edge of the development, three storeys high in the
middle blocks and two storeys high in the blocks along the pedestrian alée separating the urban
district from the nature preserve to the east on Kronsberg hill. Each block’s interior has a
protected and private character, but all blocks are open to unimpeded pedestrian movement in
order to create a rich fabric of publicly accessible rain gardens, outdoor rooms, indoor
community meeting rooms (required for every block) and children’s play areas.
Access to all the residential blocks is provided by the grid of narrow streets, designed to
allow access for local traffic to all dwelling units. Bounded by the aligned facades of apartment
buildings, all of Kronsberg’s narrow tree-lined streets encourage walking as well as casual
neighboring. A tree-shaded pedestrian and bicycle lane runs straight through both neighborhoods
on a North-South axis. The East-West distributor streets, which run perpendicular to the slope,
visually and functionally connect the tramline to the Kronsberg hill nature preserve. Streets
running North-South, which are parallel to the slope of the site, are used solely for making
connections with residential parking areas. Altogether, everything has been done in order to
discourage car use while encouraging walking and bicycling within the entire Kronsberg area.12

Kronsberg Garden City: The Integration of Ecological Function, Livability and Beauty

The Public Sector

At the edges of all public streets, rainwater is retained and filtered into the earth through
specially constructed bioswales (the Mulden-Rigolen-System), which are set between parking
bays and sidewalks. For every five parking spaces a native species tree is planted to provide
shade for the entire street cavity. The grid of Kronsberg streets is conceived of as a network of
clearly defined, well-shaded green spaces which encourage walking and neighborly interaction.

North-South Street with Mulden-Rigolen Bioswale System

Source: Gary J. Coates

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Even the on-site parking requirement was changed from 1.0 per dwelling unit to 0.8 per unit, with the
expectation that cars would make use of on-street parking and that, overall, car ownership would be
reduced because of Kronsberg’s pedestrian friendly mixed-use design and easy access to public
transportation (buses and the tramline which runs every 8-10 minutes).

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Weinkampswende Boulevard with Bioswale Park Median designed
By Herbert Dreisetl Source: Gary J. Coates

Two east-west running boulevards, one of which marks the north edge of Kronsberg-
Nord and the other of which is near the south edge of Kronsberg-Mitte, connect the tramline to
Kronsberg hill. These special landscape features, which were designed by renowned landscape
architect Herbert Dreiseitl, provide biologically and spatially rich park-like settings for rainwater
retention, water play and relaxation. Each one offers paths and small clearings with adjoining
benches, miniature hills and valleys (dry lakes), as well as graveled surface streams, dammed
retention ponds with operable sluices and water cascades. A profusion of trees, shrubs, grasses
and a rich mix of native perennials add variety and beauty. At the base of the hill on
Weinkampswende, the boulevard near the southern edge of Kronsberg-Mitte, photovoltaic solar
collectors power pumps which recirculate water to the top of the hill so that residents can always
enjoy the presence of this life-giving element in the landscape.
When walking along the sidewalks that line either of these green corridors, or while
exploring the paths that wind seductively through them, it is possible to feel like one is in a large
linear park rather than a city. Nature and architecture complement each other and seem like well

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integrated parts of a single whole. When there is a heavy rain, these artistically shaped green
swales suddenly become sensuous and safe water wonderlands. Both of these beautiful
biodiversity corridors celebrate the presence and movement of rainwater, inviting exploration
and play by children and everyday use by adults.

Retention Pond in Residential Courtyard

Source: Gary J. Coates

The Private Sector

A key part of the Kronsberg ecological vision was that the interiors of residential blocks
would be central to the rainwater management system of the entire district. The Kronsberg
Standard required that all water falling on impermeable surfaces such as roofs would be captured
and retained for long enough to delay the release of any outfall from storms to the overflow
underground piping system on each block. It was also specified that all access roads and parking
lots be made out of water permeable materials and that green roofs be used for all exposed
underground parking structures as well as any other structure with a slope less than 20%.13 In
addition, there were specifications for the number of trees and bushes that needed to be planted
in order to assure that all interior courtyards would have a park-like quality.
Approval for each block’s open space design was granted only after a careful review by
the Municipal Water Authority. Not only did this ensure that public and private sector efforts at
rainwater management would be coordinated and that water retention standards would be met,
but this performance-based approach to design allowed for a wide diversity of landscape design
strategies to be employed throughout the district. Various combinations of trench-and-gully
systems combined with seepage basins, cisterns and retention ponds and channels, were designed
by each of Kronsberg’s design teams in order to offset particular site liabilities and to take
advantage of unique topographical and architectural opportunities.
Residents, at least on some occasions, also worked with their own block’s designers to
create paths, outdoor rooms, ponds and other landscape features that would meet their special

13
See Water Concept Kronsberg, op. cit., pp 20-25.

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needs and preferences. While some blocks have more spaces suitable for adults than others,
every block has a wide variety of play spaces and play equipment for children of all ages. In
addition, residential block designers seized the opportunity of using their rainwater retention
systems as play environments even when it is not raining. When it is raining, which is often the
case in this north German city, the interior of each block is transformed into an environment that
makes water visible and encourages water play, thereby converting a climatic liability into an
asset.

Small Child at Play Inside Residential Block.

Source: Gary J. Coates

Since the large green block interiors are open to free pedestrian movement, and since
there are so many families with children living in Kronsberg at the present time, this community
is a generally recognized, especially by its children, as a wonderland of play opportunities.14 One
can always find groups of children playing in every block and roaming freely on bikes or on foot
from block to block.
Views from one block to the next are highly varied and enticing. In some cases designers
chose to align openings from their blocks to those of adjoining block interiors so that one has
uninterrupted views of greenery and changing topography for long distances. In other cases, the
views through the opening into or out of one block are closed by buildings on the other side of
street, creating a sense of enclosure and requiring a zig-zag path in order to explore what one
might find in the interior of the next block.

14
At present there are more families with children living in Kronsberg than anywhere else in the city. As
a result programs and places in Kronsberg are very much child oriented. One indication of this is the fact
that a group of children ages 9-13 living in Kronsberg got funding to create a map by and for children
showing play spaces, ball fields, nature areas, child oriented shops such as bakeries and ice cream stores,
and other places of interest for kids in Kronsberg as well as the adjoining older district of Bemerode. See
Bemerode für Kids: Ein Stadteilplan für Kinder von Kinderen (Bemerode for Kids: A City Plan for
Children by Children), Spielhaus KroKulno, Brockfeld 63, 30539 Hannover.

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View into Courtyard looking east. Source: Gary J. Coates

While one is able to move anywhere within Kronsberg on sidewalks along tree-shaded
streets, it is also possible to move through the entire community by means of a spatially varied
network of garden paths that wind through the green interiors of each block. The effect of having
these two very different pedestrian movement systems is to make Kronsberg seem far larger than
it actually is because one’s possible environmental experiences are so rich and varied.

School Children walking home along Feldbuschwende

Source: Gary J.Coates

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Conclusions
This paper focuses on the many ways by which the high density urban district of
Kronsberg (Hannover) can be understood as a “city in the garden”, or more simply, as a new
kind of garden city. As an eco-community, Kronsberg demonstrates that an ecologically-based
approach to design holds the possibility of creating socially and biologically diverse
communities and urban landscapes that are more beautiful, livable and sustainable than the
automobile dominated edge city suburbs that we in the United States have been so feverishly
building since the Second World War.15
Because Germany, like all the other major industrial societies, is experiencing a
population decline at the present time, it does not seem likely that more greenfield projects such
as Kronsberg will be built in that country anytime soon. Rather, lessons learned from this
exemplary community design project are now being applied to the redesign and retrofit of
existing buildings in the city of Hannover.
Ironically then, Kronsberg, both as a participatory planning and design process and as a
model sustainable eco-community, should be of greatest interest to the only industrialized
country in the world that is presently experiencing significant population growth, i.e. the United
States. We may end up resettling America based on lessons learned from sustainable urban
districts such as Garden City Kronsberg, Germany.

15
For an explanation of the idea of the ‘eco-community” as the basic building block of any sustainable
society worth sustaining see, Gary J. Coates, “Planning and the Paradox of Conscious Purpose”, pp 525-
551 in Gary J. Coates (ed.), Resettling America: Energy, Ecology and Community, Andover, MA: Brick
House Publishing Co., 1981.

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