Rieselfeld is a city quarter (Stadtteil) in Freiburg im Breisgau. It is located in the western part of the city and borders the nature reserve Freiburger Rieselfeld in the west, right next to a little zoo called Tiergehege Mundenhof, Opfinger Straße in the south and Besançonallee in the east. The industrial area Haid is part of the Sankt Georgen district and is located to the south of Rieselfeld, while the district Weingarten is situated to the east of Rieselfeld.
HISTORY
The word Rieselfeld means leach field in German and refers to how the area started. To ensure wastewater disposal for the city, which had grown to a population number of over 50,000 inhabitants, Freiburg acquired an area spanning 500 hectares from the University of Freiburg in 1891. After Nazism had ended, Sinti, among them some who had survived the Holocaust, settled in the area of Haid, an district adjacent to today's Rieselfeld. The Opfinger Siedlung, home of alleged outlaws and criminals, was also very close by.[2] Living in these areas, which were not yet situated in the city, meant societal exclusion for the inhabitants.
In 1985, the sewage plant had to be shut down due to insufficient capacity to deal with wastewater. The amount of wastewater had increased to 90,00 m³ per day and the disposal could not be handled without preparing the soil of the area beforehand, which caused additional legal problems.
The Rieselfeld district was established in 1992 when a competition to design city districts was initiated. The group "Süd-West" from Lörrach won the competition together with the architectural firm Böwer Eith Murken Spiecker, the architect Manfred Morlock and the landscaper Bernd Meier. The overall management was assigned to Hans Rudolf Güdemann.[3]
After several soil analyses and the subsequent soil stripping, all requirements were fulfilled to build on the former wastewater disposal area. In 1993, work started in the first segment. In 1994, the first apartments were being built and only two years later, the first apartments were finished and given over to the new inhabitants. The next year, the Clara-Grunwald primary school was opened and the Kepler Gymnasium, which already existed at this point, was moved into the newly built complex. Additionally, the Sepp-Glaser gym was dedicated and the initial work for the second and third segments of project “Rieselfeld” were started. To ensure public transportation to Freiburg's city centre, tram line 5 was also installed in 1997.
In 2000, work for the fourth and last segment of “Rieselfeld” started. One year later, a park was added, as well as a church and a community centre. In July 2006, work to expand the Kepler Gymnasium began.