Willy-Brandt-Square, Lünen (Germany): Vivacious centre of urban life

The city of Lünen, north of Dortmund on the border of the cultural and recreational landscape of the Münsterland region, combines the advantages of the nearby cwith the amenities of rural tranquillity.

The cityscape is characterised in particular by the river that runs through the city centre, the Lippe, which has brought forth a lush green urban structure with great value as a destination for recreation.

In addition to the attractive scenery, the city owes its unmistakable look and feel to the comprehensively modernised inner city. The attractive revamping of the southern entrance to the city centre, the newly designed pedestrian zone and the carefully renovated historic building façades are elements of the cityscape that now shine in new splendour, showing the city from ist very best side.


Important centre of attraction

For several months now, the redesigned Willy-Brandt-Square in the immediate vicinity of the former Hertie building has become an important centre of attraction – today an attractive commercial and gastronomic focal point with private residential space.

The successful design of the marketplace is rounded out by atmospheric space, effect and ambient lighting:

CITY ELEMENTS 230 illuminating columns and JADE 16 spotlights attractively showcase the roughly 3000-square-meter square in the evening, giving it a unique look that is accentuated by colour if desired – depending on mood, occasion and season.


Design of square focuses on attractiveness and functionality

The renovation of the Hertie building with Willy-Brandt-Square took place within the framework of the enhancement measures implemented since 2007 of the grant program “Urban Redevelopment West – Lünen Town Centre 2012 – Impulses for a Strong Core”. Their implementation is based on close cooperation between the public sector and private Investors.

“The functionally and architecturally significant new property as well as its Environment must be perceived as an Overall concept”, emphasises Jürgen Arendes, creator of the plan for the newly designed Willy-Brandt-Square and Deputy Head of the Urban Green department of the city of Lünen, who was in charge of the redesign of the area.

The holistic design concept envisaged qualitatively upgrading Willy-Brandt-Square as the centre of the city while at the same time creating a versatile and barrier-free location for events, markets, festivals and other activities. In order to improve the attractiveness and functionality of the square, it was necessary to add structure to the area with its clearly defined spatial edges.

This was achieved by a “functional strip” made of natural stone paving and a rowof gleditsias (honey locust trees). The functional strip divides the area with concrete paving stones and is designed to dovetail with the adjacent entrance area of the Technical City Hall. In addition, it serves as an orientation aid for the visually impaired.

With the opening of a café and a restaurant, each with an outdoor area, as well as additional seating, the square was made even more inviting. “Today, Willy-Brandt-Square presents itself to the citizens of the city as a lively, urban location and a destination to enjoy and linger in”, says Jürgen Arendes, summing up.


Lighting design: Successful interaction of functional and decorative light

Another distinctive feature of the design of the square is the premium lighting solution, which combines Hess’s CITY ELEMENTS 230 illuminating columns with the “JADE 16” spotlights from GRIVEN embedded in the Hess tree grates of type “Octa”.

The technically and qualitatively high-quality luminaires replace the old lighting of the square and discreetly blend into the design of the open space with their clear expression of design and chosen colour.

“In accordance with the planning approach, the lighting was to be modernised beyond the mere task of illumination in terms of its aesthetics and energy effi ciency”, says the open-space designer, explaining the basic idea of the lighting concept.


Basic lighting and lighting eff ects with automatic dimming

A total of 14 CITY ELEMENTS 230 illuminating columns with a height of 6 meters provide the basic illumination of the square from the outside. For this they were placed at intervals of about 10 meters on the square’s functional strip between the freshly planted honey locusts, at the edge of the square in front of the Technical City Hall and in front of City Hall.

A CITY ELEMENTS 230 luminaire is equipped with an additional spotlight module to accentuate the bronze sculptures in the marketplace. The designers thus used the potential of the variable luminaire system CITY ELEMENTS, whose terminating and intermediate elements can be equipped entirely according to the lighting requirements.

“The crucial factor in choosing the luminaires was the design and functionality of CITY ELEMENTS. In particular, the intermediate modules for additional illumination of objects was seen as innovative”, says Jürgen Arendes.

In addition, the illuminating columns are equipped with the integrated dimming system AstroDIM. This allows the lighting level to be automatically lowered during the night from 10 pm to 3 am to 70 % . At 3 am the lighting level is raised back up to 100 %. The city of Lünen thus benefi ts from requirementsbased lighting and a significant increase in efficiency.


Ambient lighting that changes according to the seasons

In addition to the basic illumination, the JADE 16 LED spotlights embedded in tree grates and thus in the ground provide extremely pleasant ambient lighting on the square. To accomplish this, a total of 14 spotlights were embedded along the functional strip in Hess’s OCTA tree grates, which withstand a wheel load of up to five tonnes.

The tree grates protect the root system of the new population of trees and are specially equipped for this project with two recesses to accommodate two 38-watt LED spotlights in each case. In the evening and early morning hours, their light accentuates the treetops of the honey locust trees in a particularly impressive manner.

For ambient lighting, the designers developed automatically available programming of light scenarios in RGB and warm white, colour-coordinated with the seasons. In the spring months, a high proportion of green dominates, while in summer it is yellow shades and in autumn orange nuances that determine the play of colours. In winter, blue and magenta tones are in the foreground.

The control technology of the LED spotlights is inconspicuously housed in a TOLEDO power and water bollard from Hess. Other high-quality equipment elements of the square include four PUNTO 700 waste receptacles from Hess, in which the round shape of the CITY ELEMENTS illuminating columns is discreetly repeated, ensuring a uniform overall picture, the planters developed according to the specifications of the designers and the park furniture expressly provided with fittings to aid the elderly in standing up.


Marketplace extremely well received by the city’s population

After a one-year break during the refurbishment, the weekly market days on Tuesday and Friday, as well as varied events, make for a lively atmosphere on the square. “Immediately after the removal of the construction fences and release of the square for use, the new marketplace was filled with life. The square is an extremely popular destination, not only on market days. Thanks to the redesign, Willy-Brandt-Square looks more structured, more contemporary, friendlier and livelier than before”, says Jürgen Arendes.

The city of Lünen is currently preparing for the “Lünsche Mess” from 6 to 9 September 2018: then Willy-Brandt-Square will become a crowd puller and the backdrop for fun events for young and old alike.


Lighting design: tecnoPlan Oliver Marschk, Herne; Hess

Builder: City of Lünen Plan creator Jürgen Arendes, Deputy Head of Urban Green, City of Lünen (Willy-Brandt-Square, south Marktstrasse and Mauerstrasse)

Photography: Darius Bera