Felix Platter-District, Basel

The “conventional” urban structure of the Hegenheimer Quarter is continued in a denser form within the Felix Platter site. The parallel neighborhood streets are extended into the site as a built sequence. Through this development, the neighborhoods are better connected, and the striking hospital building as a “vertical city” is complemented by an appropriately scaled “horizontal city.”

Three anchor points mediate between the existing neighborhood and the new Felix Platter Quarter:

• Felixplatz serves as the interface between the vertical and horizontal city. As a neighborhood square, it acts as a central meeting point for the entire area.

• Casa Comunale is a tower building with publicly oriented uses at its base and rooftop—the ideal location for shared community functions that span the site.

• The kindergarten is designed as an ensemble of existing buildings, new construction, and open space. Its low building height ensures a natural transition to the adjacent row housing and the new hospital building.

Three enclosed courtyard blocks with shared internal gardens form the foundation of the design. These serve as quiet places for social interaction across the block perimeter and are accessed via a continuous stoa (colonnade), which links the courtyard to the main entrances located at the corners of the block. The stoa acts as a buffer between the lively public open space network and the tranquil inner courtyard. This access principle also allows for a flexible layout of the vertical circulation cores for each building.