Sammelstelle
A wooden structure connects the Red Tower, which was once part of the medieval city fortifications, with the circular light tunnel of the underground car park. Markus Bader, a member of raumlabor, says about this construction: “Here I am interested in rainwater. Many urban sewerage systems date back to the 19th century. During industrialisation, more and more people moved closer together. Drinking water flowing through pipes found its way into households. Wastewater was no longer poured out of the window into the muddy streets, but disappeared in the wall into a new sewerage system and became invisible. Rainwater still follows the same path today. What falls onto the roof is collected in the gutter and channelled into the sewerage system via downpipes. Here the rain meets all the other wastewater in the combined sewerage system and becomes liquid waste, so to speak. The work redirects rainwater, stores some of it on site and aims to become a place to stay and mutiplicity centred around the collected water. The storage basin in the light tunnel of the underground car park also has an extraction pump. This pump can be used to water the surrounding green spaces and trees during the increasingly dry periods.” Far from proposing an all-encompassing urban water concept, Sammel-stelle invites us to think about a sustainable city and, in the double sense of the title, to gather and exchange ideas.