Description

The development plan for the south bank of Berlin’s Osthafen permits the building of high-rise residential towers and is based on a competition won in 1993 by the team of Spangenberg, Fehse, Steinkilberg. The plan reorganised the long-disused former industrial harbour area as a new inner-city quarter with businesses, offices and apartments. However, it was not until 2011 that the first residential uses began to be built in the area. Agromex GmbH & Co KG purchased the site and organised an invited competition, which was won by Justus Pysall.

The project changes the original plan of a series of repeating buildings along the riverside by concentrating the accommodation in two high-rise towers and a lower, broader hotel building. The shape of the site, which extends to the rear, made it possible to create a small, south-facing park on the south side of the towers, and to conceal some services below ground under a partially ground-level, partly slightly rising walk-on roof.

The façades of the two residential towers have projecting and receding sections that change from floor to floor, creating a dynamic, oscillating impression that sets them apart from the neighbouring office blocks to the east and west. Each of the 208 apartments faces in two directions and has a view of the River Spree. Floor-to-ceiling windows and the perimeter balconies maximise the apartments’ connections with their surroundings. The overhanging balconies also shade the respective level beneath and act as a fire-break between floors. Construction commenced in 2018.

Originally published in Bauwelt 19.2017, pp. 48-49, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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