Stadt Park-Donau
Stadt Park-Donau is a landscape and urban design proposal for a 210-hectare urban park along the Danube River in Ingolstadt, Germany. Developed primarily between 2014 and 2020, with ongoing interventions, the project seeks to reconnect Ingolstadt and its inhabitants with the Danube. It transforms the riverbanks into a continuous ecological, recreational, and cultural landscape that enhances climatic comfort while celebrating the Danube’s historical significance and its enduring presence in the collective imagination of Ingolstadt and the wider watershed.
The design objectives follow four key principles: enhancing biodiversity through the regeneration of riverine habitats; enriching public life through recreation and environmental learning amid the river’s cooling landscapes; reinforcing cultural identity by celebrating Ingolstadt’s history as a city established along the Danube; and promoting sustainable urban growth by positioning the river as a catalyst for future development.
The project approaches the riverine environments as vital climatic infrastructure for the city, seeking to enhance their ecological and social functions while establishing a distinctive landscape identity. A unifying language of custom-designed landscape furniture draws inspiration from the trunks of large floodplain trees along the riverbanks and is characterized by a golden-yellow color palette. These interventions invite residents to meander, experience climatic comfort, and encounter moments of wonder and awe, fostering a closer relationship with nature and supporting well-being.
An approximately 14-kilometre network of river landscapes, connected by a continuous multimodal pathway known as the Donau-Loop, reconnects currently fragmented natural environments, public spaces, and urban areas. It creates a coherent sequence of places for walking and cycling, resting, and physical activity. This large-scale vision was further developed into a series of smaller, site-specific interventions, including the Donau Terrace, the renaturalization of riverbanks near the dam, and the enhancement of riverside meadows for picnicking and recreation.
Together, these interventions establish the Danube as a new address for Ingolstadt—a collective landscape infrastructure celebrating ecology, climatic comfort, and public life, and bringing nature and everyday urban experiences into closer relationship.
Client and Institutional Partners: Stadt Ingolstadt – Stadtplanungsamt, Stadtentwicklung und Baurecht; Verkehrsmanagement und Geoinformation (VMG); Statistik und Stadtforschung; Umweltamt; Wasserwirtschaftsamt Ingolstadt; Stadtarchiv Ingolstadt; Stadtbücherei Ingolstadt; Europäisches Donau Museum; Bundeswehr Ingolstadt; Bund Naturschutz Ingolstadt.
Team: Silvia Benedito & Alexander Häusler (partners) Larissa Belcic, Emily Schlickman, Velania Cervino, Pia Faust, Marcus Eichermüller, Marissa Angell, Hope Strode, Gabriella Solange Rodriguez-Berrios, Dima Schledowitz, Lucas Casado