Grünspitz Giesing – to (re)make a Public Place Soundscape and Soundwalk – Concepts and Methods to Evaluate Uses of a Noise Polluted Site

The ‘Grünspitz’/‘Green Peak’ is a triangular, approximately 1,500 m2  site in an urban regeneration area in the borough of Giesing in Munich, Germany. The site was used by a second-hand car dealer for more than three decades, until the ‘MGS – Münchner Gesellschaft für Stadterneuerung mbH’ (municipal redevelopment agency) bought the property and commissioned 2014, in closed cooperation with the department of urban planning, the non profit association ‘Green City e.V’. to accompany the residents of the borough to ‘occupy’ the site by innovative civic participation. The former beer garden is covered by old chestnut trees and located in the dense heart of the former independent village of Giesing. Nowadays it is the community and commercial centre with a catchment area of more than 30,000 people. The two to six floor high buildings in the area are positioned on small plots without much greenery. It has neither public park nor street accompanying green or trees. So public – espe- cially green public – space is in high demand. The ‘Green Peak’ has a huge potential to meet this need. On they other hand, the site is squeezed between main roads – in the east with approximately 14,000 vehicles per day and in the west with about 30,000 vehicles per day. By this traffic congestion, the site is polluted by noise and exhaust fumes. This is the huge drawback of the site. The Questions for the next years will be:

•  How could the conflict between recreation and traffic noise be solved?

•  How could people relax and revive at a site blustered by 40,000 vehicles per day?

•  How to tackle this problem?

•  Structural solutions like noise-insulating walls, constructed in glass, bricks or concrete?

•  Technical solutions like active noise control?

•  Special uses or new perspectives?