Vauban

Vauban is not one building — it is what happens when a city lets dozens of building groups fill a district with mid-rise blocks: tram down the main street, shops at the ground floors, children owning the pavement, cars parked in garages at the edge. A former barracks site became the standing proof that the type, repeated, makes a neighborhood and not a project.

What to steal: the parceling. Freiburg sold small lots to many Baugruppen instead of large lots to few developers — variety, affordability, and speed came from the plural, not from any single design.