Many quarters differ primarily in their use

Quarters with a special focus of use:

• The Music Quarter in the north towards Bad Vilbel: There are not only music pavilions, but also a concert hall, an opera stage and the Music Master School for musically gifted children.
• The floating IT-College above the A661 junction Hanauer Ldstr.: A college without any entrance restrictions other than an exceptional ability to program and to code.
• The TileQuarterfortheHomeless on Ostparkstraße: Here, colourful individual accommodation is being built in tile-covered houses for 500 homeless people and 4000 people needing accommodation according to the concept of „housing first“; the quarter also comprises service flats for street workers and social workers as well as artists, therapists etc.
• The Master Academy for Arts and Crafts above the Kaiserlei: An academy for the preservation and innovation of European arts and crafts with training places for around 2,000 students by luminaries from all over Europe.
• The Youth Quarter at the Platz der Republik: in loft-like buildings there is a wide range of leisure activities for young people, supplemented by two „Ark buildings“ for children and numerous artists' and street workers' flats.
• Little Soho fortheHomeless above the bus station: the quarter consists of individual accommodation with external staircases instead of stairwells for over 400 homeless people, with service flats for staff of social organisations.
• The Rainbow Quarter above the Römerhof parking lot: The quarter consists of colorful apartment buildings, interspersed with a wide range of offerings for the LGBTQIA community such as consulting services, bars, cafés, meeting places, and much more.
• The Asia quarter above the 648 at Westkreuz: Here you will find mainly Asian supermarkets, Asian restaurants and also shops with non-food products of all kinds from Asia, with a focus on countries in East Asia. Doctors for acupuncture can be found here as well as a Japanese-style garden with a large, shallow pond.

Other quarters, on the other hand, gain their individuality primarily through architectural style and/or building materials

Neighbourhoods with a special design style and, where appropriate, special sustainable building materials

• The lobsterhouses on thepathtothelake above Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse: Here, single-family and multi-family row houses are being built of wood and wood derivatives, built in the North Sea/Baltic Sea style, with bright colors typical of northern German and Scandinavian regions.
• China-Town at Bethmannpark: A small collection of houses is built in the northern Chinese architectural style from cedar wood and has organic Chinese restaurants on the ground floor as well as Chinese cookshops with original dishes.
• The Lantern Square at Baseler Platz: The Lantern Square consists of late Wilhelminian row houses and free-standing "tile houses" á la Portugal, as well as an above-average number of lanterns to ensure more safety at night.
• The Turret Square above the Kennedyallee/Stresemannallee intersection: The buildings have turrets where an additional load from the scattered few piers is permitted, with different construction methods, and lightweight concrete as a building material.
• Little Italy above Stresemannallee in the direction of the Main: The buildings are in the Italian Neo-Renaissance style and are also constructed using various lightweight concrete materials.
• Square of Half-TimberedHouses above the parking lot of the Commerzbank Arena: The multi-family houses on this square are built in the old half-timbered construction method and with renewable material from the region.
• The Paris Quarter at Ludwig-Erhard-Anlage/Messe: The buildings here are based on apartment buildings in Paris, also built from various lightweight concrete materials; the quarter houses a French bakery, French bistros and restaurants and much more.
• The QuarterofFlowing Forms at the Hanauer Landstraße S-Bahn bridge: The buildings here are all being constructed using the Rabbitz lightweight construction method, which makes do with sustainable materials and allows for a wide variety of circular forms.

To start with: a walk in the south through quarters with different architectural styles

On the Turret Square there is affordable housing, an organic supermarket with a focus on products from the region, a tea house and a lookout tower with a large terrace. There are benches and little walls to sit on everywhere, and you can also drink from a wall fountain at the supermarket.

If you turn north of the Turret Square toward the Main River, you can walk through the FFM Golden Gate to get to Little Italy.

The "Frankfurt Golden Gate" - FFM Golden Gate - bears its name because of the suspension structure, which was specially developed to support the bridge sections through the sycamore trees and is reminiscent of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. However, should the warming of Northern Europe continue, a similar death is unfortunately expected for currently existing plane trees as in Southern Europe, where an uncontrollable plane tree pest has already spread as far as France. With the special suspension bridge construction, however, space remains for the replacement planting of equally large-crowned trees. One can walk directly along the trees at crown level, like on a treetop path.

Little Italy is a role model: in a similar way, colorful neighborhoods in the tradition of other countries can also be created in other gray, car-congested areas of the city and underscore the internationality of Frankfurt

The example of Little Italy shows how a piece of Mediterranean living can be created in the middle of Frankfurt: through architecture, planting and also through the offerings with culinary delights from Italy.  The other international quarters on the Frankfurt Bridges are also designed according to the same principle: the French Quarter at the Messe around the lake, the Scandinavian Mile above the Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage, China Town at Bethmann-Platz, the Asian Quarter at Theodor-Heuss-Allee and the Oriental Mile just before the Theater Quarter above the Westkreuz, where there are all kinds of genuine nan, small barbecue stands, stalls with oriental specialties and much more.

This concept can be continued when the bridges are expanded: Frankfurt is an international city with expatriates from a wide variety of countries - some with large communities of their own that can actively participate in the design of their "country quarters" on the Frankfurt bridges: Cultural associations can help shape the cultural program in their respective bridge quarters, universities and craftsmen's associations from the countries can contribute to the creation of original architecture, and landscape gardeners from the respective regions can work with the bridge company's horticulture department to define and, if necessary, supply survivable plantings for the country areas.

For Little Italy, not only is the space on the bridges planned in Italian style, but also the underside is to be enriched (in addition to the numerous bridge-typical light holes) by delicate bright Italian fresco ceiling paintings - for residents as well as for people waiting at the tram stations there

But also in other countries buildings are often tiled not only on the inside but also on the outside

Italian cosmati, for example, adorn floors, but also occasionally exterior walls. For the young craftsmen of the Master Academy for the Preservation and Innovation of European Crafts on the Frankfurt Bridges, tile houses represent an opportunity to test their art and develop it further in the direction of sustainability: Because tiles provide useful protection for buildings that can significantly extend their lifespan.

The final stop in the south is Little Soho: a group of buildings with innovative housing options for the homeless

Beyond Lantern Square, the main route continues to the train tracks of the main train station, but a footpath leads to a special neighborhood above the bus station near the station: a cluster of individual shelters for the homeless.

Frankfurt recorded about 500 homeless people before Corona in 2018. The number is likely to have increased due to the economic impact of the lock-downs in 2020 and 2021.

The challenges of housing homeless people

Although there are numerous shelters for the homeless in Frankfurt, there is often not enough capacity and their services are not always accepted: For one thing, it is a problem for many homeless people that they are not allowed to take their drugs inside, but have to hand them in on arrival. Drugs are often their most precious possession and they are dependent on the consumption.

Another problem arises at night: There is not enough staff to guarantee permanent security for all the people accommodated. The fear of being robbed or beaten up or raped leads many homeless people to prefer the health risk of spending the night in the freezing cold rather than going to the city's specially designated houses for the homeless.

Comparatively popular are therefore the sleeping places in the inner city B-Level at the Eschersheimer Tor, where social control is ensured with little personnel effort. However, homeless people are only allowed to settle there from 11 p.m. and have to clear the field again from 6 a.m., which is a very small time window in winter and still represents a nuisance for passers-by on the B-level, even during off-peak hours.

This is different on the Frankfurt Bridges: In the "Little Soho" homeless shelter, there are only individual chambers with their own toilets, and there is even no stairwell where you could be mugged. This is because that way you can step out of each of the 145 rooms directly into the open air and descend via outdoor staircases. The large number of outdoor staircases that this necessitates is what gives the neighborhood its name, "Little Soho," as it is reminiscent of the variety of fire escapes in New York's Soho neighborhood.

Homeless shelters approached differently: as an upgrade of the neighbourhood

On the Frankfurt Bridges, homeless shelters are also beautifully designed, so that they even become a tourist attraction: Because only if they are of spectacular beauty, they are tolerated in the neighborhood or even contribute to the enhancement of the neighborhood. And this is necessary if one wants to create such accommodations close to the city center. If they are built in remote locations, for example in purely commercial areas, they may not disturb the neighbourhood, but they are also difficult to reach for homeless people and therefore often not an alternative to sleeping outside.

The principle of Little Soho: individual accommodation instead of a homeless shelter

Even though the buildings of Little Soho look so beautiful that you would like to move right in, inside they are still very simple units of about 6 square meters, which fit a sleeping space of 1 meter width, a small area of 50cm width for belongings and a tiny toilet with sink. It is a safe warm sleeping place with daylight windows - but nothing more.

The houses are heated with geothermally stored heat and heat pumps, which means that they have the floor as a thermally activated surface. Accordingly, there is no bed in the room, it is completely empty - but has a warm floor. After admission (in winter from 5.00 p.m.) the homeless receive a sleeping mat on request, which they have to return in the morning when they have to leave the room at 10.00 a.m. at the latest.

Drainage grids are embedded in the floors everywhere, so that the tiled floors can simply be hosed down for cleaning - the water runs down a slope to the drain and the floor dries by ventilation until it is used again. This makes the empty rooms and toilets low maintenance and very easy to clean.

For homeless people with claustrophobia there are "rooms without walls"

Some homeless people also don't go to shelters in the city because they have developed a phobia against closed rooms due to the long life on the street. For them there are about a dozen corner rooms at the front of the terraces of the houses, where instead of windows or doors there are large arches in the wall on two sides, so that you are virtually under a roof outside. The floors of these rooms are heated by the geothermal system, and the two remaining walls are also geothermally activated, creating a slightly warmer spot inside the canopy.

However, these overnight chambers also have a toilet, which must also be used. Those who repeatedly fail to observe basic rules such as toilet use will no longer be allocated a place to sleep in Little Soho.

The management of Little Soho and other social institutions on the Frankfurt Bridges

It would be a good idea to transfer the management of Little Soho to organisations such as the railway station mission or Caritas and to compensate for the additional staff costs incurred there by having the bridge company offer them low-cost affordable housing on the bridges, which the organisations can make available to their staff as service housing, as a salary component so to say. 

In Little Soho itself, there are service rooms in two houses on the upper floors that are available to the organizers: There, the supervisors, who are the contact persons for the homeless during the night shift, can also lie down or prepare food in a small kitchen.

The remaining 13,000 square metres of building space are divided into around 200 micro-apartments for people who have lost their homes, i.e. are homeless but have not yet been living on the streets, and homeless people who manage to take up the city's reintegration offer, as well as functions that are needed in the social concept of „housing first“ like therapists, social workers etc.

The quarter section for homeless people and the Reintegration of homeless people is designed somewhat differently

The overnight accommodation for homeless people is single accommodation with an area of about 6sqm. In the quarter section for homeless people, on the other hand, there are also units for two, three or more people, with about 9sqm per person. Thus, couples or families can also be accommodated.

And while the purely homeless individual shelters without furniture are visited in the evening and vacated in the morning, the micro-apartments here are intended for a stay of a few days or even months until other permanent accommodation has been found.

Each unit has a mini-shower bathroom and a mini-kitchenette with fridge and two hotplates. The furniture includes only one bed, one TV and one table seat per person, so that you can eat or work at the table.

Similar to the VinziDorf in Vienna, there is also a main building in which there is a kind of food distribution and a laundry room for laundry.

In the Tile Quarter of Frankfurt Bridges, the "housing first" concept is applied, which primarily takes people off the street without preconditions and then offers them therapeutic care and reintegration as a second step

On the Frankfurt Bridges, the "housing first" concept is applied when allocating the mini-apartments in the Tile Quarter: Whereas conventional homeless concepts first require the “housing ability” of those in need as a prerequisite for housing allocation, housing first assumes that people first need their own four walls unconditionally, so that they can then voluntarily accept further reintegration offers such as drug rehab, therapeutic and medical care, self-help groups, and the like, if necessary. People living on the street therefore do not first need to fulfill any requirements or go through programs or become abstinent in order to be assigned a mini-apartment, but they are given permanent housing in order to then perhaps have the strength to take advantage of other opportunities.

Aesthetically beautiful Shards tiles made from 100% recycled material are an important sustainable building material in the Tile Quarter

These beautiful tiles in pleasantly subtle shades can be made purely from construction waste and without additives or the addition of colour, using special mixtures of recycled bricks and glass specifically for a particular look.

Reusing construction waste to "up-cycle" rather than "down-cycle" is an important principle when using sustainable building materials made from recycled materials.

These and similarly manufactured tiles are not only used in the Tile Quarter, but in numerous buildings on Frankfurt Bridges.

Frankfurt becomes a pioneer in helping the homeless

Frankfurt is a rich city, and yet the number of homeless there is growing, not only since the Corona crisis. The situation is exacerbated by inflation and a traditionally high rent level.

With Little Soho and the Tile Quarter, humane housing options are being created for people who are not helped by greenfield development areas: They need inner-city life and social institutions such as soup kitchens, charity offices etc. in their vicinity to survive.

Despite their proximity to city life, the sites for the two homeless neighborhoods are not valuable building sites that would be taken away from other citizens: After all, the Little Soho site above the bus parking lot in front of the large parking garage is not an attractive place to live. Nor is the Tile Quarter, which is right next to the federal railroad tracks and thus sometimes has noisy trains in close proximity at night - a rather undesirable residential location.

The two quarters will provide a permanent remedy for an inhumane plight, and at the same time Frankfurt will gain two more tourist attractions.

Another inner city district: the Youth and Artists' quarter at Platz der Republik

Teenage years are a critical time in the development of young adulthood, which is why there can't be enough recreational opportunities for youngsters. But usually, there are hardly any attractive offers in the inner city, since locations there are usually too expensive for youth centers. This will change on the Frankfurt Bridges: The youth quarter at the Platz der Republik should be exemplary for further cool places of this kind right in the middle of the city.

Preferably, these areas are created in places - or, in the case of the Frankfurt Bridges, "over" places - that today seem grey and not very lively. The Frankfurt Bridges at the Platz der Republik, between the main railway station and the trade fair, run over such a place.

The Youth Quarter at the Platz der Republik is complemented by two „Ark Houses“

The nearby Main Train Station Quarter is considered a socially critical neighborhood, and the Gallusviertel, located to the southwest of the Platz der Republik, is also considered a socially weaker neighborhood. The two „Ark Houses“ in the immediate vicinity of the Youth Quarter are intended to enable children from these areas to have meals after school and a place to study and play. The Ark buildings are located on the Frankfurt Bridges above Mainzer Landstrasse, which continues from Platz der Republik to the Alte Oper. With their backsides, the buildings look out onto side streets leading into the Westend.

Another Ark House for the 12 to 16 year olds

The second Ark House is for somewhat older children or adolescents, as the interests and thus also the room design change significantly from the age of 12 or 13.

This Ark House is accordingly smaller, but still designed for about 20 teenagers, because older children do not need so much space for their leisure activities.

Next to the Ark House for the older kids and teens is a kebab snack bar with an outdoor area that should also have appeal for the teens from the youth district - as a change from the neighborhood pizzeria and cafe.

Below the IT college, the floor-to-ceiling side elements create a dark room in which only columns are illuminated and one can walk on illuminated gratings walkways hanging from the ceiling..

A modern campus does not have to look like the Google campus

Quite the opposite: on the Frankfurt Bridges, a protected innovation space is being created for education on the second level of the city that functions differently from conventional structures. The IT College on the bridges harks back to the free spirit of the Renaissance and not to framework conditions defined by educational policy like other educational institutions in Germany, nor to an American campus world that wants to come across as clean and as thoroughly technologized as possible. The IT college on the Frankfurt Bridges is about the innovative creative spirit of Europe, the spirit of optimism of the Renaissance and the liberal thinking of the Enlightenment. This is the value foundation of the floating IT college on the Frankfurt Bridges.

For over 2000 students, the IT college on the Frankfurt Bridges offers a wide range of content: Every student in the college is free to choose his or her subjects and majors

However, they must acquire a basic education in all fundamental areas, regardless of their focus. To this end, there are compulsory basic courses in all relevant aspects of computer science, followed by a wide range of optional specialisation courses. 

These basics probably just need to be completed for all students, because since the (only!) admission requirement is proof of a high aptitude in some area of computer science, it is safe to assume that most students, even the very young, will enter with a prior knowledge of at least one of the areas.

After completing the basic training, a specialization can take place, both within the main subject areas of computer science and in connection with the application world: No matter whether these are in the area of databases, control, cyber security, etc etc - for the application world, guest lecturers from the application areas are always called in, whether from the manufacturing industry, the financial world, logistics, research or other areas.

Around the IT college, numerous student accommodations are located on the bridges in a campus-like landscape

the example here: modular housing constructions in container look

Another quarter - without a main focus of use, but with a special type of construction: On the way to the bathing lake, above the Rosa-Luxemburg-Allee, the „Bathing-Lane“ arises - long rows of colorful houses in North German style - as if you were on your way to the beach

The lobster houses on Helgoland are the main model for the design

The lobster houses are actually originally workshops of the fishermen of the North Sea island Helgoland. Nowadays you can find restaurants, small art or offices in them - but you can't buy them, they belong to the municipality.

On the Frankfurt Bridges, they are not reproduced one-to-one, but merely serve as an inspiration for the terraced houses that are located on the way to the bathing lake behind the gourmet row; for the strikingly beautiful thing about them is their colour scheme: This was created by Johannes Ufer, a German painter and sculptor of the so-called "lost generation" of artists (born 1912).

A little further on - on the other side of the Nidda - somewhat taller houses are being built: 79&Park in Sweden serves as the inspiration for them

The 79&Park site in Sweden has a reduced reinforced concrete core and is clad in cedar wood, which is extremely weather-resistant (it is also used in shipbuilding) and has its own wood preservative due to its essential oils.

Since genuine European cedars grow very slowly, however, sustainable forestry must serve as a supplier. Then the wood is also almost unbeatable for constructive parts of multi-storey buildings: Traditional Chinese multi-storey buildings are made of cedar, and some of them are already over 1000 years old.

The houses at the bridge end market place of the Bathing Lane are only four floors high; building material and architectural impression of the Swedish model can find here therefore suitable application. 

However, complete greening that includes the roof and facade is not trivial: If you don't want to constantly water everything by hand, it has to be ground-rooted climbing plants that take care of themselves. Alternatively, there is facade greening, where the plants are hung in nets on the facade and the roof plants are planted on special water-storing substrate - with everything equipped with a fine control system for irrigation. The challenge here is to use as little plastic as possible for the façade system so that no microplastics are washed out.

Sloping roofs are another challenge: If the plants are not exactly firmly grown on an earth-like subsoil, as is the case with Icelandic sod houses, special fastening systems must prevent the plant layer from slipping off. Unfortunately, grass sod houses are ruled out for the Frankfurt Bridges due to the high maintenance requirements.

As cute as the sight of the ingrown sod houses in Iceland may be - the preservation of a house with an "earth roof" is unfortunately too costly for the hobbit houses on the bridges in Frankfurt

Almost all bridge houses will have a complete greening of the façade for at least one side with ground-rooted climbing plants. All flat roofs on the bridges are also greened, unless they are used for solar energy generation or function as roof terraces. However, no matter which greening technique is used: unfortunately, that of the grass sod houses from Island cannot be used on the Frankfurt Bridges, as the care and maintenance effort would be far too high.

While greened flat roofs on the Frankfurt Bridges function according to the same principle of underfloor irrigation on carbon concrete columns as the greened Frankfurt Bridges themselves, the hobbit roofs with their curved shape pose a very special challenge, especially since they can also be two-storey: Their curved or rounded shapes can (as with all other curved roofs) only be sealed with root-resistant foil material.

However, even if this foil material is low in pollutants, it can become brittle over the years and release microplastics into the environment via rainwater. In view of the fact that more and more roofs - including curved and sloping ones - are to be greened worldwide, it is important to minimise potential wear problems with the sealing material as early as possible through innovation and research.

If it's northern Germany in the middle of Hesse, why not thatched roofs?

The construction materials on the bridges should be diverse in order to be able to explore as much as possible on the basis of this "innovation area", which the Frankfurt Bridges represent, and above all to be able to observe long-term effects of ecological construction methods.

However, only those materials are used that show research potential in some aspect, and this is currently not the case with thatched roofs. Moreover, there are no companies in Hesse that would be specialized in the (non-trivial) maintenance of such roofs. And without any research aspect, there is no reason to have craftsmen travel hundreds of kilometres to repair a roof.

In addition, there is the issue of fire risk: Wooden houses do not burn more frequently than houses made of other materials, and they will certainly remain standing for the legally prescribed 90 minutes in the event of a fire.

 Moreover, wood can be flamed in a controlled manner so that it forms a fine charcoal crust before it is installed, and is very difficult to ignite afterwards. A thatched roof, on the other hand, is more flammable and burns down much faster. Conversely, the inestimably great advantage of thatched roofs does not come into play in Frankfurt: namely their comparatively high resistance to coastal storms of all kinds.

Half-timbering is not always visible - but regardless of whether it is visible or not: it is an extremely sustainable construction method that is to be taken up and further developed on the Frankfurt Bridges

The „Five Finger Place“ was already particularly popular with tourists, painters and photographers in the 19th century: Pretty narrow alleys with buildings opened out there, the charm of which can still be seen in old photographs. Even though today's building regulations do not allow the alleys to be reconstructed in exactly the same way, because there is a minimum distance of 5 metres between houses, the basic structure can easily be recreated on the southern area of the Frankfurt Bridges.

Due to its unique high-rise canyons, Frankfurt has already had to overcome numerous fire protection challenges for half a century. In this respect, the local experts and authorities are used to dealing with even more tricky constellations than a few narrow alleys. Since not only the Quarter of the Half Timbered Houses, but also its subsoil and its entire infrastructure are being built from scratch, all modern or innovative fire protection measures can be applied here - which will in any case become an important field of research in Germany, not only in view of the spatial confinement, but also simply because of the increased use of sustainable, renewable raw materials such as wood, straw etc.

Why recreate historic half-timbered houses instead of creating modern half-timbered houses?

In terms of building physics, modern half-timbered houses usually function somewhat differently than traditional half-timbered houses, not least because they often insert glass in the "compartments" and conversely have fewer traditional windows. Large windows are nice, but in a more densely built-up quarters like the half-timbered house quarter of the Frankfurt Bridges, they also reveal passers-by and neighbours a great deal of privacy.

In addition, the aim of the Frankfurt Bridges is to preserve and promote arts and crafts and to combine them with innovative technology - and arts and crafts are only offered by the old half-timbered houses.

And another quarter, completely modern: The quarter of flowing forms. It is being built above Hanauer Landstrasse - and also includes an infinity pool "for everyone"

Even if buildings á la Zaha Hadid were too large for the bridges, the flowing formal language of the late architect can still be cited on the Frankfurt Bridges, albeit with a focus on sustainability and humane accessibility and warmth - two aspects that were not always at the forefront of Zaha Hadid's architecture.

Where the Frankfurt Bridges on Hanauer Landstrasse cross the S-Bahn bridges at a height of 15 metres, there is also a luxury infity pool "for all"

Although not in Rabbitz design, the infinity pool is just as elegant as its direct modern bridge surroundings, with a view over the city from its outdoor pool. Inside, it is designed like a luxury hotel and is heated with solar thermal energy and the waste heat from the data centers on Hanauer Landstrasse. The most important feature of the pool is that it costs no more than the Rebstock swimming pool and is therefore equally affordable for all citizens. Open 20 hours a day, it is set to become Frankfurt's favorite wellness spot. However, you have to register in advance with your bridge card number to avoid overcrowding.

An important parameter in all neighborhood planning on the bridges: All buildings and their function or use are related to the neighborhood buildings around them or else to the buildings along their section of the bridge

In the bridges' building cadastre, housing is proposed to be allocated to persons entitled to affordable housing who work in professions where attendance is necessary and who work in the immediate vicinity of the bridges (many occupations are not home-office-capable), so that commuter traffic is massively reduced: At Otto-Hahnplatz, for example, lower-earning employees of the schools, kindergarten or Mainufer museums should be given housing; at Nibelungenallee, for example, employees of Bürgerhospital, especially those with night shifts, etc.

On the bridges, too, sensible combinations of buildings are provided for as a basic principle of planning: Functions are not considered in isolation, but planning is done along human relationships or needs

For example, daycare nursing centers and senior citizens' homes are built side by side: They have each their own large outdoor areas, but also a common outdoor area where seniors can sit and watch the little under-threes play in the sandbox or even entertain the very young ones in their strollers. The little ones in particular are happy for any loving attention, and seniors often love contact with young children in their otherwise elderly environment.

Example station forecourts: When redesigning the area in front of Frankfurt's main train station, either a station forecourt can be created again - only a bit greener and more like new than before, or ...

In January 2009 for the award no first place was awarded. Only a second and third place won the competition.

. . . . or you can make the square a living space that takes into account the needs of ALL the people who usually spend time in front of train stations: Tourists, commuters, residents but also homeless people and begging or drug addicted people

Waiting at train stations is usually unpleasant, is only accepted involuntarily and often also reduces the willingness to travel by train at all instead of by car. If the station is a beautifully designed living space with cool gastronomy and attractive stores, then spending time there becomes a positive experience. There must also be places to go for the poorest in society who spend time there: Drug help and charitable stations must be planned in with their own buildings.

Instead of driving drug addicts or people without shelter away from station squares through "hostile engineering," open drop-in centers for them should be integrated into the colorful world of buildings there, especially in front of the stations

 Especially older people, children, young people or even women are understandably often afraid to go to the station or arrive there by train, especially in the evening hours, because they find it difficult to assess homeless people and begging or drug addicts. Therefore, station squares should not only be framed with livable, cool and attractive gastronomy and stores, but buildings for people who acutely need help should also be incorporated.

At Frankfurt's main station, this could be the beautiful corner buildings: In the rooms there, drug addicts can get first aid if necessary, receive clean syringes, be directed to the nearest consumption rooms or also receive drug counseling.

Homeless people can also receive medical first aid in the second large corner building, and they are informed about where to find food outlets, opportunities for cleaning, or humane homeless shelters - for example, Little Soho right next to the train station.

In this way, these poorest of the poor in our society do not have to be evicted by the watch company, which is also given space in one of the buildings, but can be directed to these points of contact, from where they can be taken on to the appropriate aid stations.

The Frankfurt Bridges are a showcase of innovation: also in terms of the wide range of sustainable building materials used there

Examples of sustainable building materials on the Frankfurt Bridges:

-All types of concrete with various aggregates, binder substitutes, reinforcements or even "self-healing" with the help of bacteria.

-Wood with various sustainability aspects

-Renewable raw materials of all kinds

-Exotic (to date) in the construction business: intelligent steel, Rabbitz, translucent concrete, 3D textiles for building casings, mushroom as insulator, graphene flakes and much more.

In the quarters, the focus is always on building from or with a special building material, whereby if possible at least two different houses are created, which also have slightly different urban conditions - for example, one is in the blazing sun, while the other is shaded by other buildings (be it buildings on the bridge, or next to the bridge). Only if you have several test objects that are basically in the same neighbourhood (i.e. have comparable test conditions, but differ in a few parameters - e.g. shading, structural requirements, etc.), you can research the behaviour of these building materials and optimise their use in other construction projects over the years.

The Frankfurt Bridges are thus also a testing and research field.

Whether on the bridges or on the ground: In any neighbourhood design, the ultimate goal is for people to enjoy spending time there. This is guaranteed above all if the architectural styles are adapted to the surroundings, any monotony is avoided, and diversity and variety prevail instead.