Contexture (from Latin contexere, dt. "to weave together")

“In the beginning was textile art” (Gottfried Semper, 1860)

 

Textile fabrics are created by interweaving two groups of threads. This motif serves as the guiding principle for the spatial structure proposed here and the integration of the existing inventory.

It includes the interweaving of city and landscape, of buildings and open spaces, of existing and new buildings, of squares and green spaces, of rows of trees and houses, of public and private, of housing, living together, learning and working.

 

The resulting urban fabric is intended to link existing, still separate urban structures with one another, with the Hoftex quarter around the former Vogtland cotton spinning mill becoming a linking element within important urban pathways. The formation of new quarter entrances and attractive thoroughfares, for example by creating a generous opening through the former spinning mill building, creates a link between the center to the east and the cultural area around the theatre, Hofer Symphoniker and Freiheitshalle in the west as well as to the newly planned “Hof-Mitte” train station to the south “.

 

At the same time, the planned new development responds structurally to the different grain sizes and the typological diversity of the existing urban building blocks and combines linear elements from the former station buildings with the scale of the building of the imposing cotton spinning mill, which characterizes the cityscape, to form open courtyard structures. By staggering the building plots, public open spaces are formed as neighborhood squares and green zones, which become stepping stones within the thoroughfare of the area.

 

In this way, modern blocks of east-west-oriented town houses and north-south-oriented rows are being built around the existing building. The blocks become denser towards the east and open up towards the west towards the tree-covered slope in the direction of Hochstraße, whereby the existing landscape space can be drawn into the quarter by means of green public and semi-public green spaces.

Towards the squares, clear room edges are formed with the town houses. Other uses can also be planned here, especially in the ground floor zones. In the buildings in which living is also planned on the ground floor, this is to be designed as a raised ground floor in order to guarantee the residents a good level of privacy.

 

In addition to residential use, special forms of housing such as senior living and youth hostels/hostels as well as a daycare center and a "Stadtsalon" as a family and youth center with an affiliated library are distributed at important points in the quarter and serve as a supplement to the commercial and service units planned especially on the ground floor of the spinning mill building cultural and leisure facilities.​