A team made up of Denmark’s Schmidt Hammer Lassen and Luxembourg’s Assar Universum Architects has won a competition to design a neighbourhood in Luxembourg where homes, jobs and shops are located within a 15-minute walk or cycle ride of each other.

The design of the Hollerich suburb of Luxembourg City makes use of the area’s topography by integrating the valleys of the Alzette and Pétrusse rivers into an “urban mosaic”.

The development will link Kirchberg in the northeast of Luxembourg City, through the historical centre to the southwest district of the Cloche d’Or, while also acting as a transport hub.

The area will contain a train station, a tower positioned on the Place d’Esch and a pedestrian avenue connecting the Avenue De Liberté and the centre.

The boulevard alongside the rail tracks will delineate the city’s edge, adjacent to a green corridor linking Drosbech in the east and Zéisséngerbaach in the west.

According to Schmidt Hammer Lassen, a “less is more” philosophy will be used to reduce embodied and operational carbon emissions. Designs encompass passive techniques to reduce heating, water and waste, and buildings will incorporate timber or upcycled materials. Green spaces will help to lower temperatures in the summer months.

The buildings will use simple modular designs, and office buildings have numerous entrances to accommodate multi-tenant configurations. In addition, offices and homes are designed with an eye to making it easy to turn one into the other, if the need arises.